Don't Blink
Winchell World's Ear Candy XXI
These stories are about the times of my life and the music inextricably involved in those journeys. I appreciate that you would take the time to read them. I hope it adds something positive to your day. Much love to all of you.
It’s happened to me quite a bit lately. It seems to be happening more and more. A greatly anticipated event that seems far away finally arrives at its appointed time, then, POW!, that event is over. The feeling can be shocking when what seems like moments ago you were ensconced deep in a wonderful situation just to open your eyes and have nothing left but rows of photos sinking deep into the chasms of your phone’s ever growing camera roll.
It happened to me earlier this year for our trip to Boston when I caught myself staring blankly out my office window a few weeks later wondering if that trip even happened. When I woke up on a recent Monday morning to realize I was heading back to work and that Shannon’s and my week long vacation at the beach was over, I was met with that harsh reality all over again. In addition, Shannon and I just celebrated our 8th anniversary, the sixth anniversary of being in our home, and the first anniversary of our two cats coming to our family. How did all that happen so quick? Trips, celebrations, the kids growing older, and life itself just speed by. The older we get, the more it seems to be the case. Time just keeps speeding up.
During the 1990’s, when my bedtime was a little more flexible than using Wheel Of Fortune as my ramp down to prepare for retiring before the 8 p.m. clock chime, I revelled in the popularity of late night radio talk show host Art Bell. Bell was a media eccentric, one of the last true talk radio stars before it changed to nothing but swill. Bell’s overnight program was a colorful and morphing canvas of the supernatural, bizarre and outright crazy; real tin foil hat fodder. Topics ranged from U.F.O.’s, demons, ghosts, Bigfoot, and on and on. He even had a segment about the good ol’ “Mel’s Hole”, a supposed bottomless pit in Ellensburg, Washington that emanated torturous sounds, possibly from Hell. Yep, you could put a microphone down this hole and hear the screams of misery of the burning damned. Bell’s shows could definitely pour out some high octane nightmare fuel, especially when he would have a show about exorcisms. Here’s a link to an episode if you would like to here it: Art Bell, "Mel's Hole" broadcast.
In 1997, Bell released a book, “The Quickening: Today’s Trends, Tomorrow’s World”. According to Bell, the book’s premise was, “Every aspect of our lives is accelerating and changing at a faster and faster pace”. Time, technology, the environment, our very personal lives themselves, were all speeding up and leading to, ….. possible DOOM.
The fact I am writing these words shows that DOOM hasn’t completely happened. However, simply walking through life at six full decades in, it is not difficult to subscribe to the idea that things are speeding out of control. I never needed Art Bell to figure that out at any point along the way. But, I find myself a little disoriented today, looking around and thinking to myself, “What the hell just happened?”
Mystics, prophets, preachers, talk show hosts have all tried to help with this issue through the ages by offering stories about candles in the wind, our true eternal destinies, and why every moment counts. Carpe Diem! There is no lack of people you can pay to help manage your time or give you some sort of story about how it will all work out. Many people choose the 10% of their income route to avoid the fear of time’s end. For me, nothing has come closer to helping with the predicament of time than the buddhist philosophy of living in the moment. Yes, there are countless versions of ‘living in the moment’, but I came to know it through the buddhist path via Pema Chodron. It helps, but like anything, there are conditions and time keeps trucking.
Nary a day goes by when I don’t greet the morning by listening to meditations through the Calm app. Mindfulness instructor Tamara Levitt shares daily meditation sessions on Calm, and for the past three years listening to these has been a staple of my spiritual diet. I have started and stopped writing this message I am finally sharing with you today several times over during the past three weeks. Something just didn’t seem right or simply, on time. But, it was this morning’s sharing by Tamara Levitt that helped me bring these words to some sort of finish line.
The session was simply titled, “Time”, and Levitt shared about exactly how I have been feeling. She explained how time feels scarce, and that how amongst the two ways we define time, Chronos (clock time) and Cairos (human time), it is ‘human time’ that is measured by significant moments in our lives. Time moves and morphs depending on our circumstances such as mood and environment. Time is rhythm.
For me, the past few weeks have helped me unravel some of my thoughts of the pesky thing we are all subject to: Time. I see time not as some sort of lever that an invisible hand is pulling back and forth in order to put us in specific circumstances; the ups and downs of life. Time is the fulcrum, the fixed point around which the lever moves, and it is up to us to keep the rhythm, to keep a steady beat on this see-saw sway, in order to allow us to savor every moment possible to its maximum.
It is true we have more stuff to take up our time these days. None of us have more time in a given day than anyone else. We all have the exact same amount. However, we have more things to take up those seconds, minutes, hours. Social media, the regular media, work, transport, ways to stay in constant communication, worry, regret, our personal social choices, FOMO, and the big one: FEAR. These things have successfully lobbied and promoted themselves to get more of our time, to keep us unbalanced and on a bit of a roller coaster ride. Once portions of our time are sold, they are very difficult to get back. Imagine an out of control carousel just speeding away, round and round until you just fly off into oblivion and the only thing you can make out is the wooden horse mocking you as it tramples over you on its way to another circle. I’ve felt that horse’s glare, and I really would rather not to take another set of hooves to my spiritual gut.
Time will not tell our stories, for every new minute it is offering another person, place, or thing the opportunity to move within its mysterious, non-stopping and ever morphing corridors. Time is motion, not an active being. We must tell our own stories and put them into the ground in a manner that they simply won’t get dusted away into oblivion, even in the face of violent headwinds that suggest our stories will almost certainly be lost to time.
While Shannon’s and my beach trip ended much too quickly, I have no regrets and will not give time the pleasure of taking those moments from me. Shannon and I had a wonderful week basking in the sun on Panama City Beach. I am grateful for every moment. Outside of the moment on our drive down to the Gulf when I worried our cats would be let out a screenless window during a power outage back home, the trip was wonderful. It felt balanced. And, though, it went entirely too quickly, it wasn’t because I was in another place. The time did stand still for much of that trip, and for that, I am thankful.
Maybe what it comes down to is the question of if we enjoy and like the time we have? Do we like who we are traveling through our time with? Are we building lives worth living? Perhaps its just a cold hard fact of existence that the more we like what we do the quicker it will go; thus making all more important our ability to enjoy the present moment.
I like my memories; even some of the bad ones. A huge portion of the reason I write at all is to visit those memories and make sure they keep. What I enjoy more than the memories are the present moments, in time, where those memories are happening. Laying in our beach chairs as Shannon and I sip our beachy drinks from Pineapple Willy’s as the waves roll in at Panama City, or traversing the back roads of Alabama to get us to that white sandy beach. Eating lobster with old friends in Boston. Maybe that simple call I get on a Sunday afternoon from my daughter. They certainly include time with friends eating indian food and downing Kingfisher beer as we recently did, and running into friends during concerts at our new amphitheatre in town (Def Leppard kicked ass). And, they certainly include a weekend on the couch as Shannon and I watch movies that literally got panned across the board, YET, we love them (i.e., Madame Web and Costner’s Horizon).
Oh, time; the great conundrum. One thing I certainly find necessary for navigating time is a good soundtrack. Artists have grappled with time ever since a few cavemen banged bones upon a buffalo skin. The results have provided us unlimited volumes of visual, written and recorded art to commiserate with our shared condition. I tend to gravitate to the musical side of the volumes. Perhaps my favorite song about time hit me in 1987 during junior year of college. Rush released their latest album at the time, “Hold Your Fire”, which included a rollicking yet urgent song called, “Time Stand Still”. That tune has accompanied me on cassette, compact disc, radio, and vinyl throughout the decades and is easily one of my most listened to songs. Who doesn’t put Steve Miller’s “Fly Like An Eagle” or The Beatles “Yesterday” into the compendium of works that strike major chords with our time dilemmas? I question your humanity if a good tear jerker like Kenny Chesney’s “Don’t Blink” doesn’t stop you in your tracks for a few seconds. The songs can be countless, and when I started writing these words a few weeks ago, I built the playlist first. For every song included, there could be another three that are not; probably countless more. However, these are songs that have been with me along this ride, in time.
I hope you can take the time to chill out and enjoy this playlist at your own pace. I’ve included both a Spotify version and Apple Music version. I would love to hear your thoughts about it, and wish everyone a great TIME.
SPOTIFY VERSION, DON’T BLINK PLAYLIST:
APPLE MUSIC VERSION, DON’T BLINK PLAYLIST
