The Greatest Distance

This morning I woke up sick.  Today was supposed to be a work day, since it's Saturday and my dad is home, but i woke up sick, and I always tend to feel guilty when I'm sick and lay around all day and everyone else is working.
But I was running a fever, so, in bed I lay, amusing my self with photography books and the short stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald.  Quite good, by the way.
Sometime when I started to feel hungry I ate, and then after lunch I lay outside on our small grass lawn, under my blanket that is the color of the sea.
As I lay there the leaves whispered to me and the wind blew softly around me, and the sun fell in a dappled pattern on the grass.
It was the perfect atmosphere to fall asleep, but my thoughts were running a thousand miles a minute.  I watched the leaves glisten in the sunlight and the next thing I knew an hour had passed.  This caused me to think of a philosophical conversation I had had earlier in the summer.  It went something like this.

We walked into the woods carefully, avoiding the thistles and branches that threatened our path.  We were quiet for a while, which is not unusual for us, as we often are quiet, thinking our separate thoughts together.
She spoke up then, starting the conversation, but I don't remember exactly how.  It quickly turned in a philosophical direction, as philosophical conversations are our specialty.  Soon we were talking of time, how it just goes on, never stopping to wait for anyone.
"Time, I think, is the greatest distance," she said, "Because no matter what you do there is no way to cross the distance.   You can cross any distance of land, if you try, but there is no way to cross the distance of time."
I was quiet for a moment, letting that roll around in my mind.

This is only one of the many discussions we have had, but I'm afraid it also is one of the last.  Because no matter how much we say that it's not, 2,000 miles is a pretty great distance itself, and life tends to get in the way.
But as I lay in the grass today, that particular conversation came back to me.  And I continued it with myself.  I thought about how time passes differently for everyone.  For the traveling writer time may pass in used up pens and pencil leads broken, and if you were to ask them them the time they may reply, in an ambling matter, "Why, it is three spilled lattes past one wrinkled manuscript."
Or for the rushed office worker it is, "Exactly six minutes until nine and I am already late," they spout, as they shove you out of their way.
For the grandmother rocking in her rocking chair the world goes by in cups of tea and grand children's visits, but for the factory worker it goes by in hours put in and the desperate time between paychecks.
For the detective it is mug shots taken and cases solved,  and for the child it is Pb&j sandwiches and nap times.
For the priest it is sermons given and blessings made, and for the tired hotel housekeeper it is sheets washed and towels folded.
How does time pass for you?
Does it pass in the rambling way of the breeze, who has no rush whatsoever,  or the frenzied rain, who must thoroughly soak everything before the sun has the chance to dry it up?
Or is it in the consistent crashing of the waves on your feet, or the rolling sensation of the grain of sand?
Next time you are rushing because you are late, look at the old homeless woman who is counting the hours and days by the coins dropped in her little Styrofoam cup.  Slow down a little.  Look at the little girl who isn't counting the time at all, but living life by the number of scraped knees and ice cream cones.  Slow down a little.  Enjoy it.  This isn't like the fair, where you buy one wrist band and come back again and again.
You only get one ride.