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Poetry of Love Unchanging

JJC

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measuring a moment: how your relationship with Time affects your life

I rose early on my birthday last week, stepping outside into air cool and quiet. All was still. No breeze rustling the bamboo fronds. No birds bouncing from branches. No squirrels catapulting from the highest tree limbs to the wooden fence and back up to the studio roof.

I live my days sensitive to time–perplexed by the way it can stretch out, one long moment after another, and how, also, it can dart and weave and feel like pinpricks of reality, barely realized, scarcely seen, unnoticed before it disappears.

I have lived the habit of missing time.

But not today.

The day of my birthday is usually when I am most sensitive to time–more than in December, that time of reflection and planning for the new year. Or even on my children’s birthdays, although their aging always feels like a mind-bender to me. How did you change from cuddly baby to squirmy toddler to this independent teenager who is about to leave home? Rather than being grateful for the years of living, the miracle of these years, I have often spent my birthday hyper-aware of all the time that has passed, as if it had escaped me somehow and I failed at slowing it and corraling it back.

But on my birthday last week, at the moment I stepped out the door into the crisp morning air, I realized that my perception of time was different. Rather than feeling anxious that another year of my life had passed, I felt waves of gratitude for the miracle of my life at all.

How blessed am I to have lived this long? How blessed am I to live in a world of water and air, flowers and mountains, art and song? How blessed am I to experience adventure and imagination, where anything is possible, where people are wildly complicated and captivatingly imperfect and shine with stunning beauty like the sun?

What a miracle to awake to light each day and the darkness each night. What a miracle to get to think and dream, accept challenges and work problems. What a miracle to get to mess up and try again and forgive and love even when it hurts and feels impossible. What a miracle to experience the aging of a body and a beating of a heart both held in the gaze of God?

I am loved. You are loved. Dearly, dearly loved.

There is nothing to fear this day in the ticking of a clock, the weakening of a body. Wistfulness and regret is not for us. Not this day.

Look up. Look up. Look at how long you have lived! All of life is set before you. Never-ending. Beautiful and full of possibilities. Even in the hardship. Even in the challenge. Even in the unknowing. There is good here. Right now. And more good is yet to come.


For the Loop Poetry Project this week, write a poem about your relationship with time–what you think about it, how you approach it. Perhaps you would want to consider having a conversation with Time, as if it were a person. Or perhaps you’d like to tell a story about it–or show, through figurative language, how time can be manipulated or how it manipulates you.

How does time motivate you? Or drain you? How does time frustrate you or inspire you? What stories can time tell you? What wisdom has time given you? What trials and struggles? What glories and gifts?

Share your poem here, in the comments below, or on social media, using the hashtag #looppoetryproject. If you haven’t yet joined the Loop Poetry Project private group on Facebook, I encourage you to check it out–a community of kind and encouraging women who believe that writing can be a tool for self-awareness–and poetry is a form of writing that lends itself to an even deeper study and healing of the heart.

with love, from this one true heart,

jennifer


Time Rising

I am aware it is my birthday
and look for everything
around me to speak,
the stillness of morning
when all is possible,
everything in front of me
never behind
when the sun rises slowly,
offering light kissing branches
and rooftops and bird wings
and the wind holds it breath
so that time is expectant and holy
and I am okay with its shifting—
the way forty-eight years feels
more compact than
one long song stretched
through innumerable choices to
see a moment
for what it is and yet
can never understand:
love standing in one place and
in all places at once
so I am consistently held
and I am not afraid
to be overwhelmed by
all that is possible
and perfect and true.

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06/22/20208 Comments on measuring a moment: how your relationship with Time affects your life

8 Comments

  1. Kerrie
    8 months ago Permalink

    Amazing! Thank you for sharing!!! So blessed by this!

    Reply
  2. Mariann Gilicze
    8 months ago Permalink

    I feel pretty anxious about the passing of time all the time. I often have dreams about not being ready for something or being late for something and I feel like time is racing away from me and I can never catch up with it… like I should be somewhere else, doing something else… I try to analyse these feelings but I can’t really figure out what’s behind them. I find your words and wisdom healing and calming. Thank you!

    Reply
    • Maggie Pereira
      8 months ago Permalink

      I am sharing this with my brother! He also has a blog (Streetsvillesque) and he writes poems. Thank you Jennifer for everything you do. I have very often been encouraged by Loop! Maggie

      Reply
  3. Diana Mattia
    8 months ago Permalink

    What a beautifully written poem about time Jennifer!!! I also read the other comments of our other Sisters in Christ and I agree with all of them. I want nothing more than to be able to write a poem or book even about my life, however every time I’ve come to paper and pen in hand ✍🏼 I draw one big blank!!! It’s definitely something that I need to do, and about time, oh well, time can be my friend or fiend!!! I have a love/hate relationship with time. So what a perfect way to start writing about. I thank you so much for your poem and may God bless you and the rest of my Sisters who belong to your blog!!!

    Reply
  4. Reena Shrestha
    8 months ago Permalink

    Beautiful post..I’m blessed ..Thank you Jennifer .God bless you more .

    Reply
    • Juanita Case
      8 months ago Permalink

      .Jennifer your poem is beautiful .
      My relationship with time has changed since I retired 5 years ago.
      No time clock to monitor my coming and going. Ahhhh feels so good at first. Then time seems to slowdown but I am not,,,,,,no fair.
      I try to use time to schedule life tasks….not working,,,hmmmm!
      Time why can’t I slow down?
      Oh I get don’t look at time just enjoy it…… It’s been so long that time controlled me now no control is needed.
      Time is just time….I can use itor lose….. Oh time lets start a new plan.
      Retiring is good cuz now I see time and don’t worry it all in my hands!
      La! La! La!

      Reply
  5. Margaret
    8 months ago Permalink

    For me, time is a tight rope walk; I can never afford to get too excited by it. I don’t get to linger too long or to run too fast and I don’t choose the direction it takes me, as it is always and only straight ahead. Time is me holding on and pressing forward regardless. One day I may fall gracefully off my tight rope walk just so I can feel Him catch me. Maybe it will be today.

    Reply
  6. Mary
    8 months ago Permalink

    Thank you for this post, boy did I need it! I have battled time for years for a variety of reasons. Now that I am 60 with it’s aches and pains, live alone and work from home so I am alone a Lot! I have a lot of memories of a happier time raising a large family, and at times I can get very down about what may be ahead. Your post helps me to see the hope in the future, and to be thankful for the past, and present! Love this, “I felt high felt waves of gratitude for the miracle of my life at all.“ 💗

    Reply

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