2014: Time for New Resolutions

My daughter is taking a nap, my husband is watching football, and I am finally sitting down to write a blog post. It has been over 7 months since I’ve posted anything, and since this time of year tends to inspire (lofty) goals of positive habits, I’d like to get back into the practice of writing down some  of my musings every week.  

I love making resolutions. In fact, I often make them throughout the year. Here are some examples: 1. I resolve to write a poem a week. 2. I resolve to stop leaving my clothes in the dryer. 3. I resolve to brush my kitties every day. 4. I resolve to quit nagging my husband (as long as he resolves to quit doing whatever it is that inspires me to nag him).  It occurs to me that I enjoy breaking these mundane resolutions as much as I enjoy making them. I can’t think of one haven’t broken. I’ve never been one for strict rules but there is a part of me (the perfectionist part) that wishes I was. We’ll see how long this resolution of a weekly blog post holds up. (And if I fail to do it weekly, I reserve the right to resolve to do it biweekly – as long as that means every 2 weeks and not twice a week).

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about time. This preoccupation with time is something I’ve always had but since I found out I was pregnant toward the end of 2012 (see?), it suddenly became magnified. I think this is because, as I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, pregnancy and infancy are measured in days and months, rather than years. Yesterday, I listened to a fascinating podcast on time produced by Radiolab: http://www.radiolab.org/story/91584-time/. I love thinking about how to a whale we humans are flitting around like hummingbirds (although I imagine a lot less purposefully)and how to hummingbirds we humans are meandering giants (oh, if only I could figure out how to go slower). Then, last night, I read this poem, “Theories of Illusion,” by Maureen Seaton, in which she ends:

                                

                                My favorite illusion it the one about the relativity

                                

                                of time. How the humpback with her big slow heart,

                                her contrapuntal biorhythm, weaves a song in the deep—

                                half-hour concert to her, to us a minute waltz.

(You can read it in its entirety in her new book, Fibonacci Batman, or if you have a Project Muse account.) It’s these types of connections that make me love science and poetry and the time to take them both in on one day! Now, I just have to figure out how to create time to do that every day. Or stretch time. Or slow time down. Or tell time. That reminds me, I need a new planner.