Weekend Update, July 28, 2014

"There never seems to be enough time

 to do the things you want to do once you find them"

Jim Croce

It was so last century. The warm scratch of a record on the record player, the hypnotic up and down sway of the needle, and words and a voice that were so cool...

I pretty much became cool by osmosis. 

And the funny thing is, I thought I knew what the words meant. Jim Croce sang a slow regret about mortality and  I thought, at mumbleteen years old, that I understood all about not having enough time to do the things you want to do...and of course, in a way, I did. I'd known how to tell time for about a decade, after all. So I knew that there would never be enough time 

to read all the books that wanted to be read,

or cuddle my puppy in bed,

never enough time to make all the
things I wanted to make, 

or the treats I wanted to bake,

or take the naps I wanted to take...
(hold on, this is taking a turn for the weird..)

or hold  the reptiles that people call snakes...
(hey, wait....I never wanted to cuddle a snake...)

never enough time to hang all the kittens
out in their boots,
(okay, this is really getting out of hand)

or shoot all the guns I wanted to shoot.
ALL RIGHT, LET'S JUST STOP RIGHT THERE!!

It's awfully easy for my oldster self to throw a derisive laugh at my youngster self for imagining that a tweenager could understand what it was to wish for a bottle full of time, but the thing is, it was and is still true.

Even people whose time has just started still don't have enough time.

And some of us are discovering all the time more things we want to spend all our time on. The genetically organized may well say that perhaps, if we would make the time to read a time management book... to which we internally answer

 "Manage TIME? Manage an elemental component of universal existence?!"

"I can't manage TIME! I can
barely manage my hair!!"

Part of the trick, of course, lies in finding not only the things you want to do, but the things you want to do most. The other part of the trick lies in finding a way to do the things you have to do but don't want to do quickly. The other other part of the trick lies in figuring out which things you don't want to do are things you ought to do and which things you only feel guilty about not doing. The other other other trick lies in figure out what to do when things beyond your choosing steal your available time. The other other other other part of the trick lies on its back, exhausted from all that tricky thinking.

One may as well call in a troupe of magicians once
things get that tricky....
and that's no guarantee that things will end well.

Those of you who've checked in to this little blog in the past few weeks and found postings as erratic as a poorly managed train full of oddly shaped baskets packed with irregular verbs will assume that all of this is personal.

The assumers would be correct.

There's a cosmos full of things I want to learn, and a continent or two of things I'd rather not learn. Specifically, I do not like learning how unexpected physical limitations force one to face an ever shrinking list of things that can be accomplished. I do not like learning how to choose which things I want most to do, which opportunities I wish most to pursue, which chances I most want to throw myself into taking, and then learning to choose which things will be left undone, which opportunities left unpursued, which chances will be allowed to pass me by. I do not like learning the difference between difficult and impossible.  I do not like learning about real impossibilities. 

I prefer the  if you have enough courage and
 a few good friends and a great dead mentor you really do
have a million to one chance sort of  impossibilities.

And yet, these are among the things I have been learning. I've also learned how to grill ribs and salad. I've learned that I really may someday be able to cook salmon. I've also learned that naps are sometimes better than coffee. I've learned that the world is more full of pain, beauty, courage, and hope than even I had imagined. 

And I've got a pretty strong imagination.

ever since this guy made me believe
that if you imagined hard enough,
the whole world would be filled with
good things to eat.

 For the rest of the summer, I'll occasionally be posting menu lineups- after all, 

the peeps gotta eat.

I'll also occasionally posting an update on which things are worth trying again, and doing some housework in the dusty corners of this blog. And I'll be hoping to hear from you. I'd love to gather from you a whole list of yummy food and delicious ideas to eat and think about- and you don't have to leave a comment- the menumuse12@gmail.com  email door is open wide open and waiting to receive the recipes you love to cook and the quotes and ideas that keep you going.

In the meantime,

I hope, I really hope, that by some magic

you have time and strength this week for the things 

you want to do.

 And that by a deeper magic you find

not only what you want,

but what you want most of all.

And when you find it, I hope you

hold it with all the courage you have.

Then maybe. Just maybe,

by some million to one impossibility you'll find

that for the things you want most of all, 

you've got all the time in the world.