Perhaps reflections about the passing of time have
preoccupied the human mind second only to our desire to understanding
love.
… This morning the sky is dark, it is a cold
December day. My mind wonders about things I have wondered about in the past.
Time has passed since and I have let it pass in peace.
But not peacefully. I have listened to its passage,
I have challenged its pace, and I have shared it with love. This December cold
morning reminds me of a line from Shakespeare:
“The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time”
I must have had a different encounter with time than
he did. My time has never been inaudible, or noiseless. It has been stream and
river, volcano and silent valley. My time has been noisy, crowded and lonely;
it has been gut tearing and sweet amber. It has been an open wound and charming
ambrosia. My time has reminded me that it was passing and that there was
nothing I could do about it.
… Time and love are like games we play, but games
with no rules. There has to be a winner in every game, and time wins no matter
the opponent. Love makes losing sweet, acceptable, and often desirable. And we play these games differently during
our own travel between the past and present: we do not get better at these
games, just that we realize that love stops making the losing acceptable.
It is attributed to Heraclitus the saying that:
“Time is a game played beautifully by
children”
I am not a child, nor that once young man who shared
his time with love. And with people. So is my game weaker? Less beautiful now?
Or perhaps there is nothing relative about time and
love. That we are unnecessary by-standers in the game where time plays against
itself and love watches the game with little interest. Perhaps we have tried,
since the beginning of time, to insert ourselves into that game.
I think that we were never invited.
If therefore time and love are not relative, then
they should be absolute. I do not know of a more beautiful line that the one by
Khalil Gibran when he wrote:
“Love has no desire than to fulfill itself”
Do we have a role in that process? Or like hungry
birds we descend upon the fields where the harvest of love was done and we glean
what was left behind?
… It is darker now outside and it is that sudden
calm before snow starts falling. All will be calm, clean and covered soon. But
my mind refuses to separate love from time. Perhaps because I still remember
how to play that game beautifully, like children who do not understand time. Or
like old men who have played that game and are better losers now.
And, as a temporary victory for my belief, I recite
a line from Jorge Luis Borges that makes me as peaceful as the mountain I see
from my window getting ready for snow:
“Being with you and not being with you is the
only way I have to measure time”
Let it snow now.
December 13, 2014
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014
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