the passage of time

I realized on Tuesday that the date on my watch was a day behind the date on the calendar because my watch has an analog dial that I have to manually wind past “31” after months that have only 30 days, which I hadn’t done after April turned into May.

I took care of it and everything matches now. The symbol on my watch matches the symbol on the calendar. I’m back in sync with our narrative of time. I’m aligned again with the story of hours and weeks and months that helps to orient us in our day-to-day business and relationships.

The stories and symbols that we organize our lives around are useful. And it’s good to remember that they’re meant to function for us, not dictate our lives. It’s good to remember where the most prominent stories take root. It’s good to remember the source of our most influential symbols.

If we trace the lineage of our measurement of time we don’t need to go far before we bump into the earth and its relationship with the sun. Our sense of time corresponds with our orientation in space.

Some days the passage of time makes me dizzy. Some days I’m oblivious to it. Some days my pulse speeds with anxiety about the too-fast tick of the seconds hand. Some days I ignore the symbols for a spell, and instead I heed my body’s knowledge about what needs to happen next.