cavfancier wrote:Counting time to me has a double meaning, both marking time with dire expectations, and also literally measuring time, but I hope to not complicate things here.
I suppose we could focus on the question of: we all have to count time, in order to get through our day, show up "on time", etc., but how is it that we prefer to live? That, and how does one integrate 'keeping time' or 'measuring time' with 'living in the moment'?
One Saturday morning when I was nine, I was sitting in my room with nothing much to do, and noticed the shadow of the sun on the wall opposite a window. The corner of the window made a clear, sharp angle of light on the wall. So I marked the spot with an 'X' with a pencil, and went on playing with my toys.
About half an hour later the patch of light had moved, so I marked the new spot with another 'X' and kept playing. Half hour later, guess what? The sun had moved yet again! So I marked the new spot with another 'X', and continued to do this all day long. Some kids have lots of time.
At the end of the day, the shadow of the window had traced a long U-shaped arc across two big walls and a door, with a whole series of X's, so I drew a line to connect them all. Never told anyone about it, and never really thought about why.
A month later, on another Saturday morning I was playing in my room when I noticed the shadow of the sun on the wall. The corner of the window made a clear, sharp angle, but it *wasn't* on the line that I had previously marked! So I marked it with an 'X', wrote 10am next to it, and kept playing. An hour or so later, sure enough it was another foot over, so I marked it again and wrote the time next to it. At the end of the day I connected all these X's and formed another U-shaped line across two walls, but it was higher than the one before it.
The sun was lower. Winter was coming.
I wrote the dates next to each line, and every month or two I kept doing this for over a year. I started to notice that the U-shaped line was highest in December and lowest in June. But also -- I looked at all the X's that indicated 11am, month after month (not counting daylight savings time). They formed a figure-eight on the wall five feet high!
As the seasons change, the noon-time sun makes a large figure-eight in the sky, until a year later it's back where it was again. I thought that was odd.
But from then on, if I ever wanted to know what time it was, I just had to look at the shadow on the wall. If I knew the date I could tell the time of day to within 5 minutes (by looking along the U-shaped line fifteen feet across). Or if I knew the exact time of day I could tell the day of the year to within three days (by looking along a figure-eight for that time of day). I was interpolating between the data points.
I don't know why. Would a nine-year-old marking X's on the wall qualify as marking time? It was just something I did spontaneously, in the moment, just being there, until I could get a drivers license and a job and move away.
