Time Equals Time

Last week, in a post titled "Love Equals Money ?," I pondered a theme I'd seen percolating in some blogs and newspaper stories—the assertion by some that those who had lost their jobs were less lovable or inherently valuable than they'd been when they'd brought home a paycheck.

Your response to that post—your collective assertion that true love is never money bound—was deeply moving (and reassuring since, hey, that's been my thinking all along).

Today, as the snow keeps falling, I'm remembering a conversation I had yesterday with a friend. We were talking about how we've been in this economic slowdown and I confessed that I was feeling blessed by all that I'd been learning about time. I'm learning to read the paper more slowly, I said. Learning to wait without trembling. Learning to make something old feel brand new just by changing its position in the house (and by dusting it, too; dusting helps). Sometimes I sit down, I said, and write five pages of a novel and I look up six hours later and realize that I've cheated nothing or no one, put no client project at risk, compromised no deadline—that that time was actually mine to spend, and I spent it in Seville.

I know, my friend said. You worry at one level, and then you stop. You realize that it's rather peaceful not running from one thing to another. That all you can do is hope for the best and live your life in the meantime.