Use me Any Time You Want

It's time in time with your time

The meditating seems to help. In fact, it helps in many aspects of mouse's life. There's been this mindfulness that previously could really only be achieved at the lake, due to being forced to unplug from everything. Now more often that not, while mouse carries her cellphone with her at all times, she's not so connected to anything else. No more spending hours answering emails or making notes on blog ideas. If an idea does strike her and seems to stick in that meandering way, where it flits in and out of her consciousness then, it will be written about.

This morning, feeling quite contemplative, mouse considered the idea of time and almost surprisingly how important it is to her. An example, if mouse isn't in the kitchen making coffee at precisely six, she feels the whole rhythm of the morning is thrown off. The coffee she poured for Master might too warm or sat for too long and cooled. Breakfast too, is meticulously timed out, if mouse begins it too early it'll be cold by the time the children come down, and if she's running behind, they'll be forced to scarf it down before they have to leave. Master calls it "organized chaos".

Driving too, if mouse isn't on the main road by a specific time, she'll hit every red light on the way to school and those lights are all long. If you miss one, then you'll miss each of them (although mouse will try to speed up to break that chain) and it never fails there is more waiting in the drop-off line at the school. The same was true even at the lake. The clock ticks and tocks in a rhythm of its own and mouse follows that.

The meditation is where everything stops, the thoughts might drift in and when mouse realizes that moment that she has drifted, she lets it go. The shopping list, the ironing, or whatever is rambling through at the moment, are embraced and released. Existing in the peripherals of life, waiting often patiently to be useful. Busyness or holiday madness has overtaken our normally peaceful home and Master has been more harried than usual for the time of year with work.

One evening, Master sent mouse to bed at very reasonable time, and continued to work in his study during a storm. Upstairs inside the third floor space, mouse felt the house shake like a small quake with each gust of wind. Trees bowed and stretched, scraping their branches without mercy against the wall behind where we sleep. Downstairs in the foyer, the clock chimed eleven times. Then again an hour later with twelve. Under the blankets mouse tried to listen to for the familiar sounds of letting the dog out, bolting the door after the dog returns, switching off of lights and the gentle footfalls of Master coming up the stairs. Another hour passed before she heard any of those sounds as though she was finally letting go of the stress, mouse immediately fell asleep before Master reached the bedroom threshold.

Aside from holding mouse accountable for her failings during our weekly meetings, and Master's morning oral service there hasn't been a lot of us coming together. It is different than last year, which just felt endless. It will cease be so busy and yet time will continue to march on. As a child mouse often regarded time differently with a year passing felt like forever. If someone said to her, "maybe next year," you may as well say a hundred years. As she grew older, the years didn't feel so incredibly long and eventually felt like year. There were the occasional "long" years, where time felt stretched out -- but really it still felt like a year. Now, as she gets older, the years seem far shorter. The hope of the new year fades quickly where mouse feels like she blinks and months have already passed. The seasons change and mouse will sometimes dwell on the numbers. How many articles of clothing were laundered and ironed or how many bottles of furniture polish, toilet bowl cleaner, bottles of hand soap used in the kitchen. How many of things?

Is that what a year is? Or is it measured in laughter and tears? Swats on the bottom? How many times in a year do the words, "forgive me Master," fall from her lips? How would they compare to the number of times she professes her love in an equally serious way? Of course she would hope that if there was an accounting of those times, the expressions of love, would come out way ahead. If she's painfully honest with herself she'd look at that with some great skepticism. The only thing mouse is certain about is that the number of times she's said "thank you" to him, outweighs all of the other things she might say.

If she had a word cloud for every word uttered by her, what would be the biggest word or phrase be?

Who is she kidding, it wouldn't be thank you, or proclamation of love, or begging mercy and forgiveness...Nope, it would probably FUCK (in all flavors, you, off, it), Shit, Dammit, bitch, , with all those other words and common phrases surrounding those far larger words.

Maybe that is what really need to change?