Time Retreats
My daughter remarked to me the other day that time is running so fast for her now. I realize that since she is now officially a teenager, and that her life is full of High School applications, Algebra homework, and the end of her Middle School years, I said without thinking, “It just gets faster as you get older.”
I almost regretted telling her that, but its the truth. For most people those younger days are looked upon with a strong sense of nostalgia and wanting. Is it the innocence that is lost, or the skill of being in the moment the way a child so naturally does? We fill our days with more distractions to not feel that wanting.
If being in the moment is a skill brought in with our births, shouldn’t we practice it so that we don’t wake up some night and wonder where all our time has been lost? In “Time Shifting”, Stephen Rechtshaffen writes about the concept of a time retreat. A chance to be in the moment, to create time boundaries, to honor the mundane, so that we can create some spontaneous (unscheduled) time, a chance to do what we want in our own little time retreat.
“That’s so selfish!”, you might say. I’d rather think of it as enhancing our lives, for ourselves and for the special people in our lives. If I were to practice meditation, or some form of a time retreat, perhaps my answer would have been different to my daughter. I would have been a different Dad with a better answer. If I can blend in some silly self time, some time to take some deep breaths, what wondrous things might I think, and say and do?
Is it possible to take time to make time? Can I actually step away from the fast paced rhythm, to shift into ‘me time’ and come back refreshed and accomplish more?
[Photo taken in Riverside Park, NYC by John]
