The Haunting Effects of “Time”

Here I sit, listening to Pink Floyd on my headphones.  Comfort, longing, and nostalgia have washed over me.  Like a sigh of relief, Pink Floyd brings me back to my center.

Pink Floyd

I was 19 when I bought my first Pink Floyd album.  I was really into Classic Rock at that point in my life. Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Joe Walsh, the Who.  All that.  I heard “Time” on the radio, yet again, and decided that I needed to finally go out and buy my first Pink Floyd album.  It changed my world.

When you’re coming of age, after high school and before you get a real job, every part of life takes on a whole new urgent meaning. Though I really do love all Pink Floyd (“Green is the Colour” and “Fat Old Sun” are my two favorite songs, I’m partial to their early stuff), nothing has really shaped my life like their song “Time.” Here is why…

This is how I hear their song…

Time

I wait anxiously for the clocks. This part always startles me and keeps me just uncomfortable enough until the slight beating kicks in…

The beating, accompanied by the opening drums, bass guitar, and piano notes send shivers down my spine.  It has finally begun.  I could go on here about Nick Mason’s drumming and how it always seems that he hits the beat at the latest moment possible where it is still in time.. and how Rick Wright’s piano notes are just enough to accentuate the moment… but I will have to purge my love of their playing another time…

“Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day.. fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way. Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown, waiting for someone or something to show you the way.”

I still feel like I am stuck in this lyric.  Today, I live about an hour from where I grew up, in the largest city closest to my hometown.  It’s the city where I used to go to the mall in high school.  I am still here.

It’s not that I don’t have ambitions or desires.  I do, but I suppose I am still waiting to be “discovered.” Always waiting for someone to notice me.  At this point, I know it’s not going to happen.. that if I want to break free from the prison-like routine of life to do something more important that I am passionate about, I will have to do it myself.  But will I ever? Will I be living here until I die? Is this my fate?

“Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain.  You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.  And then one day you find ten years have got behind you. No one told you when to run. You missed the starting gun.”

This lyric hurts.  This is a difficult part of my life.  I am always struggling with the division between pursuing what I love and simply enjoying life.  What is the right thing to do? I should love what I do career-wise, and then I wouldn’t feel this way.  But I don’t. As I said here and here (link to other posts), I am longing for something more.

But aren’t I supposed to stop and smell the roses, as they say?  Is life simply pushing ahead or is it more important to relax every now and then, and let yourself do nothing or simply something that is not part of your master plan with people you love?

And then ten years have got behind you.  In my case, it’s been 15 years. 15 years since I should have started running and here I still sit, waiting to be discovered.  That time has flown by.  What do I have to show for it?

Ah David Gilmour. If there was one person I could ever meet… his guitar is euphoric, angelic, sad, longing, nostalgic, and absolutely perfect.  He hits every note he should.  Not one more, not one less. It is the space in his guitar solos that make his guitar song that much more beautiful.

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking, racing around to come up behind you again. The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older. Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

This is where I’m at now. Trying to get ahead as much as I can. It gets so much harder every year. It gets harder to find the time to do what you need to.  Routine gets in the way.

I get home from work, I have to make dinner, feed our child, watch our child play after dinner, and get him to bed.  Then it’s time for all the other chores that you can’t do when watching your child.  Cleaning dishes, feeding the cats, sweeping the floor of baby-thrown food, doing the laundry, taking a shower, and sorting through your mail.  Then it’s time for long term projects that you have to keep up on, doing your budget, mailing out those school portraits that you promised months ago, writing thank you cards for birthday presents, figuring out what to eat for dinner next week, labeling boxes to put in the basement.  Finally, finally, you can work on your endeavors.  Painting, writing, sewing; all the things that make your heart happy.

What once took me just a few weeks to work on takes a few months; or maybe even a few years.  I used to make about 15 pieces of art a year. Now I make two. Two.

It’s just so hard. I am so tired. I need sleep but if I sleep, I lose that precious time to create. Shorter of breath and one day closer to death; indeed.

Every year is getting shorter.  Never seem to find the time. Plans that either come to naught or have a page of scribbled lines. Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way. The time has come. The song is over. Thought I’d something more to say.

Ahh. Let’s get together soon! I say “soon” because it is not a concrete date. It allows soon to become never. But I want to get together. I honestly do. I just don’t have the time. At least not this week, or next week. Maybe next month?

I have a collection of half-finished pieces of art. A half-finished movie, two half-finished oil paintings, half-finished woodburnings, half-finished sewing projects. Half-finished is being generous.  Some are just projects that I have only barely started. I want to finish them, just don’t have the time.

Home, home again. I like to be here when I can. When I come home cold and tired, it’s good to warm my bones beside the fire. Far away, across the field, the tolling of the iron bell calls the faithful to their knees to hear the softly spoken magic spell.

Ahh.  I’m tired. Tonight I’m going to just relax with my husband. I work so hard, I just want to do nothing tonight. Watch some TV. Eat some ice cream. Have the cats on my lap. Just relax and soak in life. Though it’s hard to fully relax, with knowing what I should be doing with my time lurking in the background of my mind at all times.

The Haunting Effects of “Time”

And this is where I stand today.  In between *all* my moments of relaxation, I think of this song. Still.  I think how I’m old, I’m late, and I’m scrambling to get to where I think I should be by this time in my life. It haunts me, and I feel like it will haunt me until the end.