Time and Shoes

It’s easy to live without clocks where there are none. My early childhood was one of those places. Now, in this childhood, I’ve hidden the clock on the computer.

I wonder: was teaching me how to tell the time an act of kindness, or unwitting cruelty? And might I not ask the same thing about putting on and tying my shoes? In both instances, shouldn’t the teaching also have stressed, above all, when time and shoes are truly important and useful, and when they aren’t? Otherwise, wasn’t I likely to grow up thinking I should always know what time it is, and that I should always wear shoes?

But what if those who taught me didn’t know themselves, or had forgotten? If so, wouldn’t time and shoes be things that were simply passed down, like religions, or unhealthy family recipes?

Afternoon. The soft spring of a dandelion flower at the end of a long stem, when a bee leaves after having its fill.

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