Friday Fragments: The Elusiveness of Time

--Yesterday at work, one of my colleagues said to another colleague, "Haven't you solved the world's problems yet?"  She said something in return, along the lines of "Oh, that I could."

I said, "I could solve the world's problems if everyone would just do what I say."

Another colleague said, "I wouldn't know where to begin."

To my surprise, I knew exactly where I would begin.  I said, "Enough food for everyone, insure good education for girls across the globe, and clean water for all.  That would go a long way."

Now, if God shows up and says, "I'm ready to give up on this idea of free will.  I've run out of time, and y'all are taking too long to help me redeem creation.  What should I do first?"--if God shows up with that question, I'm ready.

--Yesterday was one of those wearying days as an administrator--lots of spinning apart, while I tried to weave the threads back together again.  But I can only do so much:  there are only so many hours in the day, and the quarter comes rapidly crashing to a close.

--But we began the day by celebrating a friend's 50th birthday with brunch at Panera--half a century!  And we ended our work day by eating together too.

--We needed that celebration.  We had gone to our colleague's retrospective art show; she's got pancreatic cancer, so she won't be having another show.

--It's been a hectic week, but in a good way:  meals with friends, opportunities to nourish our minds, a visit from a grad school friend.  In the midst of it all, I enjoyed this interview on Fresh Air with Brigid Schulte, who wrote Overwhelmed:  Work, Love and Play When No One Has the Time.

--It won't surprise you to find that mothers are some of the most time-stretched of anyone in our culture:  "What really struck me was that for women, particularly in the United States, particularly now, they spend almost all of their leisure time with their children. And that led to this other crazy finding that has since really helped to alleviate a lot of my guilt: that working mothers today, even when they work full time, the time studies are showing that they spend more time with their children than stay-at-home mothers did in the 1960s and '70s ... because they've given up personal leisure time and time with adults."

--Schulte's way of coping:  "I think all of the strategies for us to cram more stuff into our calendar is really not the answer; it's figuring out what's important to you and making time to do what's most important first. ... That to-do list will never go away. If you have this if-then mentality, you'll never get to 'then.' I have trashed the to-do list to help my brain. I do get it all out. I write it all down because then it gives me mental peace ... but right now I try to do one thing a day and if I can do it, that's great. ... And I also give myself permission not to do it."

--Yesterday at the art show, a woman said, "I wish I had her talent."  I said, "Fifteen minutes a day.  You'd be amazed at how much better you'd be after 15 minutes a day."  I invited her to come to my office to sketch with me--or to write a poem.

--I guess I'd better bring some art supplies to the office.

--I'm loving the idea of this project, The Poet Tarot.  I've loved Kelli's collages, and this project sounds neat.

I've captured these images from the Kickstarter site, but I'm willing to delete them if asked.  I'm guessing that the creators won't mind, especially not if it drives more traffic to their site.  So, my tens of thousands of readers, head that way!