TIME IN A BOTTLE

One of my most very favourite songs is Jim Croce’s Time in a Bottle:

    If I could save time in a bottle The first thing that I’d like to do

    Is to save every day ‘til eternity passes away Just to spend them with you.

Whether these words evoke memories of people who are living or gone, the sentiment is the same.  The moments we shared with them are in the past, out of reach, water that has travelled on in the river of life.  It will never pass this way again.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to uncork a bottle, take a deep breath of memory, and find yourself holding your two-year-old’s hand, or paying closer attention to your grandmother’s stories, or standing still while your mother does a fitting for a dress she is sewing for you, or sharing laughter over an inside joke with your husband knowing you are the only two on the planet who know what is so funny.

    If I could make days last forever If words could make wishes come true

    I’d save every day like a treasure, and then Again, I would spend them with you.

We’ve all been there.  The longing to spend just a little longer with someone or something we love.  The wanting to linger in a moment – the innocence and trust of childhood friendships, the delicious rush of falling in love, the breath-taking mixture of naiveté and over confidence when we stepped out into the world to make our own way, the mind-bending awe of holding our newborn children in our arms.  All of these things are precious beyond words; how lovely it would be to travel in time to experience them once more.

This past week, as summer finally let go her fierce strangle-hold of unrelenting heat and smoke from distant fires, I have felt the year slip quietly in to autumn mode.  The sun is kinder on my skin.  The garden is giving up its bounty.  The leaves are turning color.  The air is tinged with the scent of completeness and satisfaction.  Crickets sing us to sleep at night.

This is, by far, my favorite time of the year.  If I had a bottle to save time in it would be decorated in fall colors and smell like ripe apples.  These are the days where time already seems to be suspended, breathless, hushed.

Of course, there is work to do.  The point of sowing a crop is to reap it.  Whether it is cucumbers or canola, potatoes or wheat, there are long hours of harvest and storage ahead.  There will be meals on the run, long days and short nights, aching backs and skinned knuckles, but along with these things are also the feelings of satisfaction and accomplishment.  Of doing worthwhile work in a world that needs the foods that you grow.

    If I had a box made for wishes And dreams that had never come true

    The box would be empty Except for the memory of how they were answered by you.

If I had a box made for wishes, and dreams that had never come true, I guess my box would be empty too. 

To be living in this place, and in this time, is exquisite.  Our lives are own personal bottles.  Savor them.

 

ARRRGGGH!

It all started with a missed phone call.  There are not too many times that I don’t have my phone with me but occasionally I head out to the garden without it.  No problem, that’s what voicemail is for.  That is, if you can access your voicemail.  That’s always handy.

Like I said, this doesn’t happen very often so I don’t have to retrieve voicemail very often either.  When I do though, it is with the same access pin number that I have used from the beginning of voicemail time.  A simple, easily remembered 4-digit code that has never changed.  This time, though, the recording said I got it wrong … all three times I tried it.  They only give you three tries and then they make you take a time out.  I muttered some colorful words and went on with my life.

You can’t ignore voicemail though.  Every so often, at random times of the day, your phone goes spastic with very annoying startling sounds to remind you to check your messages.  So I tried again … with my personal pass code, my three-strikes-and-you’re-out code, only to be told I had failed once more.  I have no idea what forces were at play in the universe to alter my code; was it my phone? was it some glitch at Sasktel’s end? had I been hacked by aliens? No matter what the reason, I was unable to get my message. 

Did you know that after you have tried and failed twelve times you are then blocked from your own account?  That the only way to rectify the situation is to call Sasktel?  This isn’t annoying at all.  I decided that the portion of my life that I would spend on hold wasn’t worth whatever the message was.  Who needs voicemail anyway?  Who cared whether I got my messages or not?  Not me, that was for sure.

But my phone did.  It cared.  And at random times of the day it would go into it’s spastic little alarm sounds and I would shut it down and say some more bad words.  This went on for maybe a week before I finally gave in and dialed up Sasktel tech support.  We went through the identification process and the which-number-are-you-calling-about part before I got to talk to a real live human being who immediately informed me that I was not allowed to change the pass code on my own account because I was not the owner of the account.  I would need my husband’s permission to access my voicemail.  This didn’t upset me at all.  The nice gentleman at Sasktel detected this.

As it happened my husband was out on a tractor and wouldn’t be able to help us fix the problem so the fellow on the phone said he would send me a link to go in and fix it online.  I don’t know if he actually thought that it would work or not, I’m pretty sure he just wanted to get off the phone while I was still managing to control more bad words.  I thanked him and said goodbye.  I used the link he sent me, followed the steps they set out, but when it got to the part to actually change the pass code I had to tell them which phone number I wished to change and I was shut down again.  I was only the co-owner of the account, I still needed permission.  I wonder where my blood pressure was at after that one, I should have checked.

Another day or two passed.  In order for this to be remedied I had to remember to call during business hours when the all-powerful owner of the account was available to give his blessing.  Meanwhile I tried to go in on my phone and shut off the voicemail alarm, but if there is a way to do this I couldn’t find it.  I contemplated calling Sasktel to cancel even having voicemail but was afraid that if they would let me do that (without permission) with my luck the offending voicemail (and alarms) would remain on my phone to haunt me forever.  Time went on, my muttering bad words escalated.

Finally I could take it no more.  One of those #*%@#! alarms went off at 12:30 am and woke me up to toss and turn until 4:30ish, working myself into a state of fury at whomever it was that made up this stupid rule. 

You have to understand: The only thing Glen has to do with this account is he uses his phone.  I do – and always have – done every single other thing.  I pay the bills, I am the only user of email, I set up the mySASK portal, and I have made every single trouble shooting call over 40 some years.  About 3:15 am it even dawned on me that in all reality the account was mine.  When we got married and moved to the farm, I had transferred it to his name because back in the olden days there was one phone per household and it was registered under the head of the household’s name.  Who could have foreseen in 1983 where telecommunications would be by now?  Now every single person in a house has at least one phone and privacy laws have gone overboard stupid.  I can literally change the password on the online account so that the owner can’t access it, but I can’t change a code on my own voicemail account without his permission.  If we had a swear jar around here it would be full by now.

The very next morning, shortly after breakfast and while the farmer was still in the house, I dialled up Sasktel one more time.  I proved who I was, Glen proved who he was and gave his blessing to allow me to fix what I still think was a problem created by Sasktel in the first place.  I have chosen a new easy to remember code but I really hope I never hear that voicemail alarm ever again.  If you want to leave me a message, just send me a text.  Please.

 

 

LETTING GO

Moving forward, by definition, means leaving something else behind.

We’ve all be there.  When you think about it, life is nothing but a series of hellos and goodbyes.

Sometimes the circumstances are of our own choice and sometimes they are beyond our control, but undeniably, moving forward always means change.  It takes us out of our comfort zones.  It makes us learn new stuff.  We are forced to face new challenges and grow to meet new realities.

It’s scary.  But it is also exciting.

These past few weeks I’ve been trying to think of ways to help my grandchildren – and their parents – prepare for a move.  A literal move from one home and lifestyle to another one: from an acreage with wide open spaces to town life, from a smaller house in a huge yard with many gardens to a bigger house on a smaller lot, from small town school classrooms to much bigger schools. Every day that they get closer to the big day the worries about “Are we doing the right thing?” get bigger.  I’ve been in similar situations; it is very scary.

It's not that this move hasn’t been thought through.  I would guess it has been in the works for at least three years and the reasons for it are valid.  Its economically positive and opens employment and educational opportunities up for both mom and kids.  It’s still scary. 

Last summer it was another set of grandkids who were in the same position.  Their lifestyle is prone to moves because of their dad’s job but this was the first time they were old enough to be affected by the upheaval in their personal lives.  They were leaving behind the only home they could remember and all their school friends.  They were switching from tiny classes in a French emersion school to larger classes taught in English, and as it worked out their stay-at-home Mom would be going back to work fulltime too.  Life would never be the same.  They spent most of last August with us while all the moving commotion went on; their worries floated just below their usual sunny dispositions.  It was a long month … but it did turn out just fine.  The most important part was that they were making the change together, as a family.  They could adapt and grow together, and they have.

The packing up part of this move is almost done.  The house is a jumble of boxes and empty walls and no one knows where anything is anymore, a situation that won’t change for months.  Everyone’s nerves are frayed and emotions bubble up at the slightest provocation.  It’s D-Day minus 2 now and the kids are coming here so mom can finish cleaning.  Hopefully holidaying at grandma and grandpas will give everyone a break.

Undeniably there are harder things to say goodbye to.  Places and things can be replaced, losing a person is much worse, but they all take adjustment.  You just have muddle through somehow.  What’s that expression – fake it till you make it?  Do any of these worn-out cliches sound helpful?

In gymnastics, when the athlete’s routine involves traveling along a series of hanging rings, he or she uses their momentum from swinging forward on one ring to reach for the next.  If the move is to be successful there is a crucial moment when they have to let go of one they have a safe grip on in order to reach for another.  That’s where we’re at.  This is that moment.

My guess is that a year from now they will look back and not remember these tough days of letting go, but the meeting of new friends and being able to join more activities because there are so many more options close by … which will begin to build the momentum they need to reach for the next ring in their lives. 

Life is nothing but a series of hellos and goodbyes, and it’s not all bad.