Markers of Time

I have a dentist appointment today and surprisingly so. I have two cleanings a year and it feels like I just had one. Is time speeding along faster than it should?

 

This got me thinking about all the little indicators we have of time’s relentless march—or if you prefer, timeless cycling. From the small to the large, the trivial to the significant, we live in a structured form not unlike a musical composition, with greater and smaller ways to mark time. In the jazz world, from the beat to the four-beat measure to the eight measure phrase to the 32-bar song to the greater structure of the repeated head melody (64 bars) followed by various solos and returning to the head. In symphonies, that translates to exposition-development-recapitulation and then telescopes out further to four large movements with different tempos. In Balinese music, cycles are marked by the different size gongs, with the largest announcing the completion of the largest cycle and the beginning of the next. We humans are creatures of time and our rhythms, from musical to daily life, are structured in repeating cycles from the small to the large.

 

So in the composition of my life, I thought about all these reminders that give form to the year. Here’s a first-draft:

 

Daily: Morning rituals of meditation, shaving, stretching, writing these posts

-      Afternoon walks or bike rides and errands

-      Evening piano practice and  TV episodes

Every two days: Shower (doing my part to save water in California!)

Every week: Shop, laundry, play music at the Jewish Home

Every two weeks: Men’s Group meeting

Every month: Turn the calendar page, change my razor

Every six weeks: Haircut

Every two months: Fingernail clipping (Guessing on this one)

Every six months: Dentist

Every year: The annual Orff Conference. Summer Orff Courses. Trip to Michigan. All the annual holidays and seasonal trips. Buy a new pair of jeans.

Every two years: Orff Afrique Course. Buy a new pair of shoes.

Every ten years (30/40/50/60/70): Big birthday party. (May change to every five!)

 

What’s your personal calendar like?