Perceived Time

The cable guy was going to show up at Grandma's house from 9-12 or 1-4. What kind of window is that? That window of time is as useful as saying, "I'm going to come on Saturday."

So I spent the day at Grandma's to help when the cable guy showed up. And it was a good thing I went. Even I, who is fairly well-versed in the audio/visual domain, was confused by the worker's broken English, heavy accent, and liberal use of cable-company jargon. But overall, the cable appointment went well.

I remember asking Grandpa Diff (my father's father) what it was like to be retired. He responded by asking me, "What did you do today?" I replied, "I woke up. Had breakfast. Watched tv. Read a little..." He quickly interrupted me, "That's what's it's like to be retired: do those things, just do them slower, and that's the whole day."

Diff's words seemed very applicable today. At Grandma's, I walked around the backyard. I pulled a few weeds from the garden. I looked at the beets that were starting to sprout from my Mother's Day efforts. I helped her with her insanely monochromatic 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle. I read some of my novel. I ate a dinner of white rice and boiled hot dogs. I watched the second half of the basketball game. And before I knew it, it was 830 at night. I don't really know where the day went.











The simplicity of the day made me feel content. It was a very calming day especially amid my current tempests. But returning home, stepping out of the tranquility and back into my busy, real world, I felt a sad for my grandma.

Stepping into her life is simple and relaxing, yes, but it is only simple and relaxing because so many of her milestones in life have already passed. She's had kids. She's retired. She's become widowed. She's paid off the house. If she came to my life, she would caught in the midst of looking for a second job to make rent, writing overdue theses, applying to university programs.

When I visit her life, I perceive the simplicity as a mini-vacation, but for her, the simplicity is the frost that accompanies the winter of her life.

And it's sad to think of it like that. But it's even more sad that there is nothing to be done except keep doing the puzzles, keep eating the hot dogs, keep pulling the weeds until "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow."