“ Time waits for no one,” it is said, or at least sung.
I like to imagine Time at the bus stop, lighting one more cigarette, impatiently looking up the street for the bus which is not necessarily late but which keeps Time waiting. I guess it’s a rather grim image of Time to hold, considering I am that beleaguered bus, stuck in traffic, loaded with passengers, just ever so slightly late on all accounts.
“ But late, goddamn it. Late.”
Maybe I should imagine Time as a bookish girl at the same bus stop,reading a very thick Russian novel, lost in her reading, totally forgetting about the bus or waiting. Maybe that’s what Mick Jagger meant.
Time doesn’t wait because it don’t need to; it’s time.
It’s only me turning time into a character waiting for a bus.
Turning it into a commodity to be spent, used. Doled out for this or that. As something to run out of, or want more of.
“I wish I had more time.”
But it’s May . And I have very little time it seems. Every moment seems so preciously usable. Time has boiled down to days, hours, minutes in which to get things done.Time has become as material as the flats of annuals to be planted, the bags of fertilizer to be spread and the packets of seeds to be sown. Time is the miles travelled, the hours slept, the days worked.
It seems a bit abusive to whittle grandiose time down to packets, bags and flats. To measure it, dole it out. To slice it and dice it until there isn’t a moment to spare. It’s not Time that’s in a rush. Time’s not impatient; I am. I am always trying to be 10 steps ahead of myself. I think I need to be this time of year. But do I?
That’s why I decided to sit in my parked truck and sing:
“ Ti-i-i-ime is on my side.
Yes, it is.”