{"id":20971,"date":"2019-03-01T07:44:34","date_gmt":"2019-03-01T12:44:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=20971"},"modified":"2019-03-01T07:46:26","modified_gmt":"2019-03-01T12:46:26","slug":"give-yourself-time-because-time-doesnt-give-itself-to-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/give-yourself-time-because-time-doesnt-give-itself-to-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Give Yourself Time, Because Time Doesn’t Give Itself to You"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Image:<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: “#everydaybandw 443,” by John E. Simpson. (Shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page<\/a> at RAMH.) It seems to speak for itself, especially once you understand the context.]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

TIME PASSES TIME does not pass. Time all but passes. Time usually passes. Time passing and gazing. Time has no gaze. Time as perseverance. Time as hunger. Time in a natural way. Time when you were six the day a mountain. Mountain time. Time I don’t remember. Time for a dog in an alley caught in the beam of your flashlight. Time not a video. Time as paper folded to look like a mountain. Time smeared under the eyes of the miners as they rattle down into the mine. Time if you are bankrupt. Time if you are Prometheus. Time if you are all the little tubes on the roots of a gorse plant sucking greenish black moistures up into new scribbled continents. Time it takes for the postal clerk to apply her lipstick at the back of the post office before the supervisor returns. Time it takes for a cow to tip over. Time in jail. Time as overcoats in a closet. Time for a herd of turkeys skidding and surprised on ice. All the time that has soaked into the walls here. Time between the little clicks. Time compared to the wild fantastic silence of the stars. Time for the man at the bus stop standing on one leg to tie his shoe. Time taking Night by the hand and trotting off down the road. Time passes oh boy. Time got the jump on me yes it did.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Anne Carson [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The things you do not have to say make you rich. Saying things you do not have to say weakens your talk. Hearing things you do not need to hear dulls your hearing. And things you know before you hear them—those are you, those are why you are in the world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(William Stafford [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Bad People<\/strong><\/p>\n

A man told me once that all the bad people
\nWere needed. Maybe not all, but your fingernails
\nYou need; they are really claws, and we know
\nClaws. The sharks—what about them?
\nThey make other fish swim faster. The hard-faced men
\nIn black coats who chase you for hours
\nIn dreams—that’s the only way to get you
\nTo the shore. Sometimes those hard women
\nWho abandon you get you to say, “You.”
\nA lazy part of us is like a tumbleweed.
\nIt doesn’t move on its own. Sometimes it takes
\nA lot of Depression to get tumbleweeds moving.
\nThen they blow across three or four States.
\nThis man told me that things work together.
\nBad handwriting sometimes leads to new ideas;
\nAnd a careless god—who refuses to let people
\nEat from the Tree of Knowledge—can lead
\nTo books, and eventually to us. We write
\nPoems with lies in them, but they help a little.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Robert Bly [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

It was almost dark on an early summer eve and the forest was never more enchanting than now, at dusk. At dusk the mountain begins to withdraw its force back into itself and become quiescent.\u00a0 If you too become quiescent, so still that you can’t think of your name, you can feel this as a palpable fact. Just become so still that your mind won’t be bothered to remember the mundane and then you’ll feel it, like you can feel the shifting of the winds. Then you’ll know when the mountain changes from exhaling to inhaling. That’s not so important in itself but the mind that is quiet enough to notice is<\/em>. The mind that it not always caught up in detail is your only treasure. Stop chasing details and become still to feel it. The mind that sees details clearly but is not caught by them is like a vast borderless mirror. That mind does not oppose itself.<\/p>\n

…Just keep on looking, keep on throwing things away. Don’t stir yourself up over details. Sooner or later there’ll be a flash of recognition and each moon in the water will call you back when you forget.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(G. BlueStone [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Summer Job<\/strong><\/p>\n

“The trouble with intellectuals,” Manny, my boss,
\nonce told me, \u201cis that they don’t know nothing
\ntill they can explain it to themselves. A guy like that,”
\nhe said, “he gets to middle age—and by the way,
\nhe gets there late; he’s trying to be a boy until
\nhe’s forty, forty-five, and then you give him five
\nmore years until that craziness peters out, and now
\nhe’s almost fifty—a guy like that at last explains
\nto himself that life is made of time, that time
\nis what it’s all about. Aha! he says. And then
\nhe either blows his brains out, gets religion,
\nor settles down to some major-league depression.
\nMake yourself useful. Hand me that three-eights
\ntorque wrench\u2014no, you moron, the other one.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Richard Hoffman [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Navigator<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let’s say I’m Captain Cook, setting sail to drift<\/span>
\nuntil currents push me
\ninto a certain lane, certain highway
\nwith its humpbacked traffic bobbing along.<\/p>\n

My young aren’t strapped in the back<\/span>
\nflinging Cheerios into the crevices like a game of darts
\nbut moored in the house with my patient wife
\nso I can seek my destiny here—<\/p>\n

And I have no destination, not the Friendly Center
\nor aquarium—I journey only
\nto find a usable route.<\/p>\n

I’m stewing the bones a fourth time<\/span>
\nto leach any last savor for my
\nbroth—
\nnot gumming pirate birthday cake<\/span>
\nwith seafoam-colored frosting, nor
\nplacing my order at the drive-thru
\n(no, not a Frosty, not a McRib)\u00ad\u00ad—<\/p>\n

Place-names are still to be scrawled,<\/span>
\nnew-minted to mark
\nthis passage, its weather and bits of luck.<\/p>\n

The usable route’s a velvet highway I’ll trace
\nto parchment—a new day, a new world,<\/p>\n

not the GPS lady recalculating—<\/p>\n

These words held in my mouth,<\/span>
\nthese words a way to inscribe we are not lost<\/span>
\nin a vast expanse of lostness.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Rachel Richardson [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “#everydaybandw 443,” by John E. Simpson. (Shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.) It seems to speak for itself, especially once you understand the context.] From whiskey river: TIME PASSES TIME does not pass. Time all but passes. Time usually passes. Time passing and gazing. Time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"G. BlueStone, Anne Carson, Robert Bly, et al.: 'Give Yourself Time, Because Time Doesn't Give Itself to You'","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[183,247,1393,4701,250,5,251,4159],"tags":[1345,1395,1895,3811,4876,4877],"class_list":{"0":"post-20971","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-everyday-life","8":"category-ruminations","9":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","10":"category-my-photography","11":"category-art","12":"category-06_writing","13":"category-poetry-writing_cat","14":"category-essays","15":"tag-william-stafford","16":"tag-robert-bly","17":"tag-g-bluestone","18":"tag-anne-carson","19":"tag-richard-hoffman","20":"tag-rachel-richardson","21":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/everydaybandw443_johnesimpson_thumb.jpg?fit=500%2C500&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-5sf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20971"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20979,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20971\/revisions\/20979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}