Time, Time, Time

It's a hazy shade of winter.

Everyone’s heard the saying that, on their deathbed, no one regrets not spending more time at the office.

Everyone’s cognizant of their finite existence. How it’s important to fill your days with meaningful activities. Or productive activities. Or worthwhile activities.

You see the memes come across your social media feeds as consistently as a heartbeat. I’ve already spoken about how time is the most precious commodity we have.

Everyone would like to turn back the clock. Make better use of their time here on earth. Have the time of their lives. Every day. All of the time.

Social media shows people making better use of their time than you. It’s not enough that you envy lifestyles, money, travel, the number of friends or the number of likes or the responses but you are also envious of their much better allocation of time.

I wish I could tell you how much time I’ve spent driving between Cashmere and Leavenworth. Since my business rafts the Wenatchee River and the Wenatchee River has always been our most popular outing and I have always been the primary shuttle driver, I have driven that round trip of 28 miles god-knows-how-many times over the course of my lifetime. Considering that, I have to ask myself, ‘How many times have I driven between Seattle and Leavenworth?’ For that matter, ‘How many times have I driven between Washington and Texas?’

(I’ve done two non-stop marathon road trips in my lifetime. Once from Austin to Seattle, by myself, where I basically drove 41 hours straight. The other time was between New Orleans and Seattle, when I had a fellow driver and we made that trek in 55 hours without stopping. She drove between 7pm and 7am, and I drove between 7am and 7pm. The sketchy camper van we nicknamed the Snowgoose was equipped with a comfortable enough bed, unless, of course, your partner is driving through a snowstorm in the middle of the night in the middle of the vast emptiness of Wyoming with semi-trailers whizzing past at speeds too fast for the conditions.)

I’ve spent a lot of time on the road. My only comfort is that almost none of it was commuting time. (I don’t consider driving to put-ins on rivers, even if the trips are commercial, commuting. But that’s just like, my opinion, man.)

How much time have I spent brushing my teeth? Showering? Shaving? Flossing? Doing all of my other bathroom business?

How much time have I spent reading - books, magazines, blogs, short stories?

How much time have I spent cooking, washing dishes, prepping meals, shoveling snow from the walkway, shoveling snow off the deck, shoveling snow away from the house? Tending to the house, in general?

My point being, we spend the majority of our existence in the realm of the mundane. So, it’s the margins that make the difference.

First off, like doctors, everyone should abide by the creed to “do no harm”.

The precious little time we have interacting with the world-at-large and our fellow planetary travelers should not be wasted disparaging or bullying one another. The previous occupant of the White House, and his progeniture, greatly stressed this notion. Perhaps public figures who seriously impact the public should be considered exceptions to the “do no harm” rule. They must be held to account and, if it requires colorful language, so be it.

Bullying of all sorts is a sordid waste of priceless time. With so little time to waste, you should aim to spend as little as possible in states of anger. Online bullying is so impersonal, easy and supercilious, but is it really worth the time? Abusing sentient beings of all kinds is another solid total waste of your limited resource of time. Why throw away time being cruel?

I know people have been on their death beds and have taken a measurement of their lives and have been appalled at their callous use of time for things they knew to be detrimental, destructive or demeaning. Those folks must be so miserable in their final hours realizing that not only did they burn up time on the myriad mundane activities we all live through but they used so much of it being jackasses.

I spend a lot of my time looking out my windows marveling at the beautiful landscape that surrounds my house. Feeling grateful and lucky to live in such a place.

But I am not going to account for my time other than to do my utmost not to thoroughly waste it by following QAnon, scamming people out of their life savings over the phone, fighting dogs or roosters or betting on dogs or roosters in fights, storming the seat of the government for a narcissist that doesn’t care for me, taking potshots at random forest animals on my way to work each morning, belligerently marching around a store without a mask making some pitiful statement about freedom, calling cops on Black families for being Black, strutting around in public in military gear with deadly weapons. . . the list, as you might imagine, is endless.

I’d rather spend those irreplaceable moments staring out the window in a meditative peace.

I know I’d rather make it to my deathbed and not regret very many of the moments I spent, and I certainly won’t lament not having spent more time at the office.

For those of you born in the 21st century (or close enough - say, 1990 on), have you every heard of Tom Robbins? He was a journalist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer who decided one day to “call in well”. He told his bosses he was feeling really, really good and he didn’t think he would ever be coming back to work.

I’ve always loved that story. “Calling in well” has become a catch-phrase. I use it as advice ever so often for those conflicted by their current employment state.

Anyway, Tom Robbins went on to become a prolific novelist of books some of you might not have heard of and would undoubtably like. My favorite was Another Roadside Attraction. Which, by the way, is also the name of a fun rapid on the Methow River where, notably, one of our guides once found his boat deep in the maw of the reversal known as Cape Canaveral and . . . things did not go well from there.

Here’s E Reads list of Robbins’ 10 best novels. Any of them are a delight.

Photo: Tom Robbins from bookpage.com

Also, Dave Chappelle on the Capitol Riots and CNN’s Don Lemon’s succinct, sensible reaction to Chappelle, the riots and Wisconsin’s clueless GOP senator Ron Johnson.

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"A Hazy Shade Of Winter"

Time, time, time See what's become of me
While I looked around for my possibilities
I was so hard to please
But look around Leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter
Hear the Salvation Army band
Down by the riverside's
Bound to be a better ride
Than what you've got planned
Carry your cup in your hand
And look around you
Leaves are brown, now
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter
Hang on to your hopes, my friend
That's an easy thing to say
But if your hopes should pass away
Simply pretend That you can build them again
Look around
The grass is high
The fields are ripe
It's the springtime of my life
Seasons change with the scenery
Weaving time in a tapestry
Won't you stop and remember me
At any convenient time?
Funny how my memory skips
Looking over manuscripts
Of unpublished rhyme
Drinking my vodka and lime
I look around Leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter
Look around Leaves are brown
There's a patch of snow on the ground
Look around Leaves are brown
There's a patch of snow on the ground

- Simon & Garfunkel