Le Temps

The title is in French because 'le temps' means both time and weather and I've noticed both recently.

Yesterday morning here it was stormy, strong winds, pounding rain, so naturally I felt it necessary to go out to play. I went down to the Nature Park and walked the trails. It was energising, although I must have been the only one out in it, I didn't see another creature whilst I was walking.
On the noticeboard of the nature house I saw a poster asking for volunteers to show groups of school children round the park, so I rang the number. The education lady seemed very enthusiastic when I told her I had been a teacher in England and I was invited to come in on Tuesday morning. Now I'm sure you can feel the approaching cynicism. The only reason I have the time to do this and would even consider giving that time for free isn't that I'm a fine human being, no it is because I'm not yet allowed to work. I can already feel it in my bones that that very inability is going to somehow prevent me from doing this. We'll see.

In the afternoon, the sun came out and I sat like an old lady in a rocking chair by the patio window, quilt over my knees, reading my book.
Somewhen around 22.00, Kevin looked out of the window and noticed it was snowing, hence the picture, snowing and being whipped around wildly by the wind. Fantastic.

I always close the blinds as soon as the light goes. Not everyone does this around here. I don't understand it. I don't want to be on show to everyone at night, nor do I want to be able to see into their houses when I do look out. Why don't they close their blinds, draw their curtains? I like to keep the night out and have privacy inside. Mostly I want to be able to play air guitar and scratch my bum without having to do it gracefully in case the neighbours are looking in. So I close and draw. Strange English woman.

At 18.30 on Sunday, the sky was still dappled, not entirely dark yet. It always catches us out this lengthening and shortening of the days. Year in, year out we make the same jokes, the 22nd of June,
'Oh, the days are drawing in,' the 22nd of December,
'Oh, can feel the days getting longer.'
And then there is always a series of days when suddenly we are aware that it's darker later or earlier, as though there is no smooth transition but a series of little jumps.

Measuring time against clocks. When I was in the exam phase of my life, in exam halls clocks ticked, that's all you could hear. Maybe a pen being dropped. Not any more of course, now time passes more silently. Silent time is better, less pressure, no longer that awareness of time being split into seconds and being lost into the ether, of waiting for the tick, tick, stop.

Time's an odd thing don't you think? It's almost as though it exists because we have a word for it. If we had no word for time would we see ourselves as getting older or would be think of our lives as a whole, that train on whose roof we stand, only seeing in one direction, but in reality the whole vista spread around us?
Perhaps our notion of time is so powerful, so fixed, because we need it to be, it is beyond our comprehension to imagine it not existing.

So melancholy waiting for the season to change. Hints of spring then called back by winter.

Physically, I am a slow person. I'm a slow eater, slow cyclist, slow swimmer, even a slow shopper. I have pondered what this says about my relationship with time, clearly I have less of it available for other things and I do seem to fill my time somehow, but what I really think happens is that I drag time down to my level so that the rubber sheet of spacetime is slightly buckled under the weight of my existence. Or too full of my own self importance perhaps.

Time moves slowly in bureaucracy too. One tiny weeny hurdle was crossed yesterday. We heard that Kevin qualifies to sponsor me. Go figure, it has taken almost two months to decide this. Kevin is fifth generation Canadian and has a good employment record. On the application forms, there is actually no option to state that you were born in Canada.
Be still my cynicism. I am the slow one so I should be able to wait.