Time is a funny, precarious thing.  When we have it, we don't know what to do with it, and we wish it would go away.  When we don't have it, it's all we think about.   Our lives are governed by time, and yet we never seem to get used to its rhythm.

Technology seems only to exacerbate this predicament.  The incessant need to check for email, to be ready to receive instant messages from friends or random strangers looking you up on facebook - they all have the effect of trying to reduce the time between moments of experience, and with devastating success, at least in my life.

Those who know me know that I love to think.  that's how I used to describe it, but now I'd like to sketch a different picture.  When I pause in my life, it isn't to think, it's to reflect and absorb.

 This was painted for me in stark detail in March and April as I traipsed about the world, and is mainly do to a lack of access to technology and opportunities to just sit.  

My first week abroad I visited seven cites in three countries on two continents.  I did forty hours of research, ten hours of paid work, and a staggering eighty hours of travel on some form of public transport.  This gave me a lot of time without an internet connection, and without any distraction but the view out the train/plane/bus/underground window.  At first, I spent those moments shuttling through my notes, or trying to distract myself with a puzzle or paper.

Then I thought, "What am I trying to distract myself from?"  Some people would answer 'boredom', but I don't think that's the case.  Boredom is the lack of distractions combined with a lock of desire to engage with oneself and/or the surrounding environment.

No, I think I was (and am constantly) trying to distract myself from allowing life to sink in.  A half dozen years ago (around the time I created this website), I was defining my life by the moments that I created, always seeking the next one.  What ended up happening progressively since then is that my forward-thinking mentality let all the time in between moments slip by, mainly in a wave of email and web surfing, but also in the contact desire to be around my friends and anywhere but alone.

Perhaps this was because, as during my time at St. Olaf, I once again had a solid group of friends and I wanted to make the most of it.  In the line of thought I'm taking here, though, friends are a distraction, unless they are sitting quietly next to be on the park bench (as a few often do).

It really wasn't until I lost my mobile phone on an Amtrak train from Washington DC to Newport News, Virginia, that I realised what I was doing.  I saw then that disconnection, detaching myself from the worldwide umbilical cord, gave me the chance to simply sit and let things soak in.

Take a simple example.  When I go to the office, sometimes I wear headphones, with my latest tunes or podcast.  Sometimes I am absorbed in watching other get on and off the metro (of the river when I'm in Oxford).  But sometimes, and moreso lately, I ride slowly on my bike down the Isis towpath, away from the morning commuters and slightly detached from the world, reliving experiences (often from a new angle) or simply focusing on the hum of life.

This realisation has led me to some interesting insights, one of which is the thinness of the fabric I have used to construct my life lately.  The meaning was there to be constructed, but I never paused long enough to construct it.  I have lost touch with my centre, that grounded part of oneself that gives intuition and gentle prods on what is the right thing to do.

[two weeks later] 

The problem with writing these Journal entries is that they must always be written in a single sitting.  It's been two weeks since I started this one, and life has moved on considerably since then.  I have forgotten the other points I was originally going to make, so instead I will give you some new ones hot off the pondering press.

While I now have my phone back, and am once again around my friends and the web, writing that first bit did help me take stock of things and reset my priorities.  I have once again carved out a space in my morning to sit quietly looking out my window onto our increasingly beautiful back garden.  When I go to bed at night, I let my mind drift for a while, knowing that I may not like where it goes, but marking that thoughts as the ones that I taking the effort of my subconscious.  riding home on the river paths after dark, I pause and watch a solitary swan slowly moving up the river, Oxford reflecting in the moonlight.

I'll admit that it is easier to pause in these surrounding than in most places, but I found spots in Washington as well.  I love going to museums and monuments by myself because it allows the pace of the day to match my own.  I remember sitting on a couch in the Hirschorn for maybe an hour one day, watching the weather outside and the people interact with the art.

Ok, so those last two were more moments themselves than in between moments, but I think my point is still the same.  They all require time, but a special kind of time.  They require time not to do, but time to be.  They require time to situate ourselves - mind, soul, and body - in the world where we find ourselves.

Remembering that this different type of time exist has really done wonders for me in the past few weeks.  I'm less tense, less stressed.  I feel my research is moving forward, and I have found chances to catch up with friends (by really talking and listening to them, not just sharing a pint.)

I feel like I am now weaving stronger strands through my thin fabric of life.  Most importantly, I now feel that I have actually created more time.  My days, while moving quickly now, aren't just flipping by.  I'm finding my rhythm with time again.  Here's hoping I can keep the tune.