Time Weathered

Time is a lousy sculptor. It carves wrinkles into faces, potholes into roads, and ruins out of civilizations. And yet, we worship it. We set our clocks to it, mark our calendars by it, and sell our souls for just a little more of it.

I suppose that’s the point though. What is the point of a prize, anything worth “winning”, without some competition. We have to judge our time, to race and to struggle against, to make us feel whole. Only against Time we get the ultimate pat on the back, or in this case, swat on the hiney!

How will we judge our time here? It certainly won’t be in paystubs, bookmarks, or sleeps. I’d like to think it could be measured not by a number at all, but on a pass/fail grade, the kind that they gave in all those electives in school. Did you weather the storm or not? Did you use your time or not? Did you endure the struggle with a smile or scowl.

I’m reminded of an old dance floor, the kind that has been broken in over decades, not years, and comes to life every Saturday night in small town America. Our dance, The Dance, we perform every night with our routines, our clever tricks to gain more time (or at least disguise its passage), and hurrying to beat the clock. We call it Life. Time calls it Foreplay.

In the end, time weathers us all. It erodes our bodies, our memories, and even our legacies. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe we’re meant to be worn down, reshaped, recycled. Time isn’t the enemy—it’s just the ocean, and we’re all just rocks.

-From the Desk of the Weathered