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The North is to South Like the Clock is to Time

I spent some time this afternoon searching for music to use in one of my classes tomorrow. We need to have a discussion about how writers use diction and metaphor, and music with cerebral lyrics is perfect for this time of conversation. As I went through the list of songs that used to be on the iPod that followed me to Peru and Spain and more morning runs than I care to count, I stopped at "I Am Mine."

The north is to south like the clock is to time.
There's east and there's west and there's everywhere life.

I've always loved this particular lyric, but until today, I never took time to think about what it says. If north and south are opposite directions, what does this say about the relationship between clocks and time.

This is such an interesting concept to me. As an American, I grew up in a culture that believes time is money. I have frequently lamented to others that I'd rather have money stolen than time because time is the only commodity I can never recover. All this time, I've seen this view as showing the utmost respect for time.

At this point in my life, I see time as a dichotomy. Of course, there's the moment. This moment. The one in which my fingers are bouncing across my keyboard as my eyes are fighting to stay open. This is it it--the moment that I can never get back.

Yet, this isn't the moment that I find myself pining over. Instead, my mind wanders to the moment when I will finally crawl into bed tonight...the moment tomorrow when I will do a final review of a book I edited for a company in California...the moment two weeks from now when my love will be here for the holiday.

When I claim to value time more than anything else in the world, I'm not sure I mean it. If I really valued time, I don't think I'd see it as marks on a clock or dates on a calendar. Those moments are just potential time, and they will only matter if God sees fit to let me keep breathing until they arrive.

Real time is going on right now. It's the text messages I'm reading as I write this and worry about whether I'm being rude to you or him. It's the hours I spend staring at the ceiling of the bed with my darling's legs wrapped around me, alternating between feelings of complete safety or utter insecurity. It's the conversations with my loved ones that go on until they become obscene.

Real time is scary. My plans aren't successes or failures yet, but I cannot really escape what's going on right in front of me. Like, I'm well aware that my jeans are too small, but it's so much more pleasant to imagine that I'll actually go run tomorrow than it is to look in the mirror and see where I am. Right now isn't scripted, and I may say the wrong thing.

But..I'm ready again for raw.

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