TAKING TIME, MAKING TIME

Taking time for the little things is something we’re supposed to do.

Making time to get it right is always the challenge.

In some worlds, maybe yours, time is elusive, slippery, until you get rewired one way or the other.

A guitar is one way, but instead of making time or taking time, you try to keep time.

Keeping time is tricky with so many choices.

Having kids is another way, then you don’t worry about time because we’re on the kids’ clock.

The labor pains are minutes apart; feeding times hours apart.

From there you are on to new life time, and it’s not the baby, it’s you.

My kids are in their mid-thirties.

It seems like yesterday they were walking to school together like I did with my brother.

Now they are setting an example for the next generation while we push through year after year.

Grandparents as example? Example of what?

 

How To Stay Out Of The Way

‘Quality time’ kind of grandparents are the fun kind, a ball of energy, boundless energy.

They usually live far enough away that quality time comes in smaller doses.

Everyday grandparents? You get reminded of who you are every day.

Instead of high energy, there’s more of a pace to the time spent.

In a way it is timelessness, a hard goal to reach.

What is timeless? Timeless beauty, timeless nature, timeless love.

When you get there, you’ll know.

I’m pretty sure I’m there with wife and kids and grandkids and dogs.

What time is it?

I remember my Mom and her second husband Glenn traveling for kid events.

It mattered to them, to us, while they set an example for participation.

My Dad and his second wife moved a few hours away to be near her kids so they didn’t travel as much.

The interesting outcome from that is my kids remember Glenn better than my Dad.

That bothers me a little bit, but I kind of saw it coming because I got married at thirty-one instead of twenty-one.

The kids would have had their Grandpa ten extra years and I’d probably be on my third wife.

Get married later, stay married longer, is the goal. So far, so good on the day to day project that is marriage.

Take nothing for granted, avoid becoming a piece of furniture, and stay busy.

 

A Writer Taking Time

If you write, if you make time to write, all of your problems are solved.

There’s always something to write about, always a story to tell.

If you write a blog you can throw any kind of slop up on the screen and call it good, even if it’s not.

If you can convince your housemates, husbands, wives, kids, dogs, that you’re taking time to write every day, then you my friend are a winner.

Speaking from experience, it’s not easy. You don’t want to come off sloppy, insincere, or confused.

Writing won’t eliminate your problems, but it will bring them into focus.

What kind of problems? Proofreading, spelling, punctuation.

Smart readers know the difference between ‘experimental’ and lost.

So get tuned up, start the clock, and go.

Be consistent and eager to learn.

Do that and you’ll have plenty of hands in the air asking for your story.