A wail of a day

So here was yesterday's plan:

Morning:

Get up early to take my husband to the train station. He'd travel almost four hours to Toronto, catch the train up to Richmond Hill where he'd have a meeting at the Rudolf Steiner Centre. He's one of the people who does Waldorf Distance Learning for prospective teacher training students.

Afternoon:

Fetch grandson from kindergarten, usually a forty minute drive away. Take him home and stay with the family for dinner. Promised is a roast, seeing as my husband is not eating red meat at the moment, being on a health diet. Also, haven't seen the family for a while, so it's a double jammy: delicious meal, and time with loved ones.

Evening:

10 p.m. Pick up husband at the train station.

Right. So I delivered him at 7.35 a.m., which gave him about five minutes to spare.  Soon after nine, the phone rings. It's the woman who co-ordinates the Distance Learning Program. "Is he there?"
"No, he's on the train."
"Oh noooo," she wailed. "The venue is closed. Our meeting is cancelled."

I emailed him, phoned his cell, had to leave a message. Half an hour later, he calls back to say he's aware of the situation, "but if I'd looked at my emails five minutes earlier, I'd have been able to get off at Kingston."

Unfortunately, the train was an express. So he spent eight hours travelling, with a short stop in between for a bite of lunch. A healthy one... or as healthy as you can find in a Food Court!

Meantime, snow had been falling steadily since 8 a.m. My son calls. "I have four-wheel drive. Better that I do the pick up. But you're still invited for dinner."

Hope springs eternal, as we know.

But.... come 4.30 I've seen and heard what a mess the roads are. How slippery. Not a good idea to drive an unnecessary 25 kilometres. So the dinner plans were cancelled and I had to find something to cook for myself.

The good news is, I managed to pick up my husband at 6.50 p.m., only five minutes late because of the slow-moving traffic, and only sliding on those slippery roads about a dozen times.

Whew!

Our awareness of time

Usually, driving in my car, I have the radio on. And there are certain programs on certain days of the week that I especially like to listen to. This was the situation the other day when the announcer announced that 'now you can listen in to this program any time you like'.

Immediately I thought, 'Wouldn't that take away some of the anticipation and pleasure? And even, take away a bit from my awareness of time?' I remembered back to my childhood. At 5.15 on most weekdays (i.e. when I wasn't at ballet) I'd be listening to 'Sooooooperman!!!!' To some extent the progression of my afternoon was defined by those fifteen minutes of listening.

So we are emancipated more and more from our awareness of time. I'm thinking more daily and weekly rather than monthly or yearly. We can work in the artificial equivalent of daylight for as far into the night as we wish or need, and I'm sure you can think of many other examples.

This morning when I woke and enjoyed the sunrise I thought, 'Thank goodness for that.' And the sunset. These two can still define our daily lives, and I'm grateful whenever I see them.