Cycles

As the cricket’s soft autumn hum is to us, so are we to the trees. As are they to the rocks and the hills.   

                                                                          -Gary Snyder

 

 

Thursday night is garbage night. Once every seven days. 

 

Once every six or seven weeks, I get a haircut.

 

Once every six or seven months, a dental cleaning.

 

So when I take the cans from the alley to the street, I feel that small marker of time passing, another week out of a lifetime of some 3,673 weeks. 

 

When I see my haircutter, there’s that moment when I think—“Hmm. Six weeks already?”

 

And then there’s my dental hygienist, a long term relationship that lets me know that almost half the year has passed. I went to her the other day and immediately remembered that we had an appointment just when I returned from Singapore two years ago and I was joking about this hysteria about something called the corona virus. They did ask me some questions, but that was the extent of it. Little did we know.

 

Soon will be the annual check-in with my tax accountant. From garbage to hair to teeth to money, all these small, medium and big cycles that mark the turnings of time. Life is indeed periodic and our lives move in cycles of different lengths.

 

Right now, I’m working with a music teacher at a school that has a six-day rotation schedule and it’s a nightmare. It is so anti-musical not to know that the melody will repeat in its proper place in the cycle and to have it constantly displaced so that it takes six weeks before it completes its rotation. Too long to feel the metrical rhythm of it all. Aargh.

 

So this is what I thought about when I went to the dentist. And I’m happy to report no cavities, root canals, extractions or implants that require another visit. I will see her in September and once again, feel time’s passing.