Take Five

Most everything I do, in terms of time, is estimated, from actually getting up as opposed to when the alarm first goes off, to driving from point A to point B, to meeting a group of people somewhere. Because of traffic, the telephone, forgetfulness and bad estimations, rarely am I ever at an exact place at an exact time according to my calculations.

As I’ve gotten older, I thought I would be better at pinpointing my space-time coordinates, especially with so much technology to help me. My cellphone is accurate to the second and calibrated with satellites connected with the World Atomic Clock, or so I’ve heard. My computer comes with programs and widgets that keep track of my schedule. My e-mails are sorted and prioritized chronologically, so that older work requests do not undermine, overlap, or duplicate newer work requests. The files that I work on have time stamps. Some of my favorite shows come on at two minutes past the hour, just enough time for a quick bathroom break, and if not, I can always record the show on the DVR. Because the running time is given for every movie on TV, DVD, or in theaters, I know when it will end before it even begins.

But even though everything is so controlled, so precise, I am still late. I am still stressed. Because I know that I should have more control, and the fact that I don’t, makes it worse.

And so, one day, I purposely made myself late. I had just gotten out of the shower and was staring at the cordless phone’s clock (oh yeah, there’s one more place that tells you the time), trying to estimate how long I can dry myself, apply deodorant and other miscellaneous lotions, get dressed, arm myself with my wallet, cellphone, keys, sunglasses, pen, and writing pad, and get to my car with enough time allotted for the average freeway traffic at that time of the day, that day of the week, that time of the year.

I was thinking about all these things when I just stopped.

Wrapped in a towel, I thought about how nice the parks must be this time of year.

Dripping, soaking, I thought about what I wanted for Christmas.

For five minutes, I didn’t move. The passing of time, as much as the towel, dried my body.

And then, when I got bored of not worrying, I resumed my ritual of getting ready. When I met my friend, I told him all about it. He didn’t even realize that I was late because he had taken the time waiting for me to call five extra minutes’ worth of people. If I’d never said anything, it never would have been an issue.

During our lunch at an outside cafe, we agreed to purposely spend five minutes not talking, and just watch other people and the midday traffic. We silenced our cellphones and Blackberries. We purposely sat there until we had had enough of our own silence, of giving ourselves a break from cramming every nanosecond of every day into something “substantial” and “productive”. When we resumed talking, we talked more slowly but didn’t waste words. We talked about a lesser number of topics, but each topic had better taste, because we had more time to chew.

We never looked at the time. We didn’t rush. And when we were good and ready to leave, we returned to acknowledging the clocks on the walls, in our pockets, on our wrists, in our cars, clipped to our belts, grafted to our lives.

It was five minutes before we had initially planned to leave.