In a world without clocks, I find myself following the sun.
The first whisps of light brush me awake. I rise and stretch. Then it is time to eat: the light’s gentle slant and my stomach’s grumbling tumble tell me so. The sun slides on and I know then it is time to walk, wander, and do everything else in the world that it is right to do. The warm radiance of the sun puts me to motion with the rest of the world. And in the evening the last soft coming of the night puts me to rest.
The sun drives me to action more joyfully than that face full of rigid circling hands ever did. As if I was a pet, they would say with their little finger-mouths: “1pm is time for feeding,” “12am is time for bed” and so on. 2:37pm is time to smile. My friend just walked in the door. 7 minutes late. What shame and anxiety to be late; to be out of alignment with time. A punishing feeling of remorse and failure for existing momentarily out of harmony with the song of our society. With the ticking clock.
But there is no lateness anymore. Not here. Not under the warm sun. Everything happens precisely when it is meant to. And it all flows together without fear.
Somewhere in that everything I hear the heart of my heart, what it is meant to do. And I can smile about that until the end of the world. Until the sun runs backwards in the sky.
The world flows through the sky and I flow with it, murmuring softly along the ground as my activities all run together with a satisfied smile: day in, day out.
Chimes, ticking hands and schedules—all melt away like ice before the sun. As have all those cascading numbers that once worried away at my nerves. Is it 1pm now? 12am? 2:37pm? “What will I have to do next?” “What looming change bears down on me now? second by inching second?” I do not speak like that anymore.
Done is that mortal fight against time. Where every fraction of my life was sliced to pieces—minutes, hours, days, months—that may each suddenly demand I stop and obey. That I halt with myself and immediately engage in whatever 5pm desires me to do.
Those crushing demands that always make we wonder if I can ever have enough now to dodge out of the way of their inevitable blows.
I look up blearily. What time is it now? Who can say. But I know. I know when it is time to rise, time to rest, time to eat, time to run, time to shout for the brilliant joy of the world.
I know what to do in every dancing moment of my life. I do not wonder if it is time. The sun, the earth, my heart, they tell me when everything of import will come.
I flow like a tree in the wind. I flow through my days. From my beginning to end.
