6.27.2008

..time/space

Recently time and space have been playing a shifting role in my life.

Ordinarily I never have enough time. Technically I have always had the same amount of time, 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, and 52 of those in a year. I am noticing the difference in time because of the speed of life I am living at. I am no longer weighed with 80 obligations that I will have to strategically balance to keep everyone happy, no longer plagued with to-do lists that never diminish in size. I stay up later, wake up later, go to the office when I want, and often plot very little of my life that actually happens according to plan. In all of the sticky summer looseness, I am finding that I am not becoming more relaxed, but simply more discontent. In reflecting on the year I found that I had little time to reflect. I was thinking a fair amount, but in a very removed and pragmatic way in order to solve problems and not waste any time. With the time allotted me this summer the little pangs of discontent get louder and I have become increasingly restless in my skin and circumstances. I have also been noticing lately that much of my life is ruled by time. I make decisions because they need to be made because there is a deadline. I think about my future because ‘it’s coming’ and I should be prepared before it gets here. With my head so far in the future, fine-tuning the details of my life, I tend to disregard the now, with its simple pleasures and profound foreshadowing of what the future may bring. Living a life with time as a propelling force makes next more important than now and tomorrow more important than yesterday. It seems as though it does a devastating disservice to my being and development.

Space has been different too. I got fairly organized over the school year, out of want and need. I clean my room more, am less of a pig, and see the real value in having an orderly space. Owen is also very tidy and systematic and working with him so closely for a year, I look to that as a standard of composure and effectiveness. All of that being true, my internship is a disaster. There are probably close to a million loose-leaf sheets of paper, layered on top of one another, collecting dust and my anger. It is a disaster and it is stressful. The other difficult part of the situation is that the room reflects its owner, so events like misplacing crucial notes for an executive attorney meeting happen.

This year, my life started out disorderly and chaotic and it has slowly been shifting away from that, in my organization and thinking. At times, I will come home and intentionally clean my room because I want to live into a more organized space in my life. Other times I would intentionally not clean because I needed a break from order and needed my space to reflect the confusion I was experience. I am looking forward to the day when I am no longer tidy but just live into it because the way I interact with the world is different.

Space is also reflective of my perspective on concepts. If when I think of church, I think of a building, it seems as though that community is relegated to a physical place and has little chance of making into any other part of my life. If I think of our community as this house that we live in it is reduced to activities in a common location and striped of the deeper meaning that it has between members. When I think of FareStart and the care that they placed on the material space of their classrooms and offices, it is obvious the care and concern they have for the dignity of the people that they are serving. Space is never more important than people but can almost palatably reflect the perception of them. This makes me really excited to have a house of my own.



Shallow:

I am dehydrated.

I have a very awkward set of tan lines on my back and I honestly don’t know how they took that shape. There are two horizontal lines, but I was only wearing one swimming suit. I don’t understand.

My sense of smell was very keen today.


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