Living in real time

Dear You,

Behind the cliche lies truth. Just because so many others have observed that the country is really, really big doesn't make this knowledge less dramatic for me this morning. When I awakened in Seattle, my watch said it was 8 o'clock . . . but the clock in the living room was chiming 5. Three hours earlier, back in Rochester, people were getting up to prepare for work, and I'd gone to bed only three or so hours earlier -- 1:30 a.m. on my watch, but just 10:30 on the nearby clock . . .

I suppose that many people who arrived here from the East three days ago reset their watches. Knowing I would be returning on Tuesday, I kept mine the same. In a sense, then, I've been living a couple of lives -- one here, the other there. When I look at the time automatically displayed on my cell phone, and I decide to call someone across the country, I consult my watch and think, "well, they may still be awake at this hour" or "oops, they're already at work by now!".

As fish live in water and birds in air, we live in time. It's such a cliche, but never more true for me at this moment than now . . . and now . . . and now.