Time.

before crashing and burning

Another year drawing to a close, another wrinkle on the face of time.  The comet Ison, which has been traveling since the dawn of time as we know it, crashed and burned last night in the glorious fireball that is our sun.  It has travelled billions of miles over billions of years, from the icy outreaches of the solar system (the Oort Cloud- I have been learning stuff today), a dirty snow ball traveling at speeds of around 900,000 miles per hour.  It does rather put a human’s time on earth in perspective, and as a way to go, well, pretty spectacular really; a Thanksgiving fly by, though I think it could have waited another month so we could celebrate New Year by its light, after all what is a month in that time frame? Which brings us on to the knotty issue of what is time?  At which point my brain halts in its tracks and re-enacts the outer edges of the solar system by becoming frozen and unreachable.

But did it burn up? There seems to be a slim chance that part of it did survive it’s sling shot journey round the sun.  Is this a metaphor?  Is it saying ‘don’t give up on me just yet’?  If so, who or what is saying that?  The Earth?  Bristol’s traffic conundrum? The co-op bank?  My son*?  My stair carpet?  Take your pick, from those or any number of other messes (and yes, I am aware of the irony of choice * after my last posting but hell, I am a mother and entitled to such irony) that need to clearing up.

New year is always a time of vows, clear outs, promises to self, diets, surreptitious returnings of tragically wrong gifts, new horizons, new ideas.  I know we still have to get through the party month, the gorging, the jollity and general silly season, but while I’m on this slightly darker path bear with me.  I have plans for the New Year, uncrystallised slightly fuzzy plans, determined to make changes and make my work life better.  At my most bleak I think we are all on a fixed, immovable path into the metaphorical sun, with no hope of bits surviving to make the loop back and start again.  At my more positive I am convinced that things can change if we have enough will, foresight and energy.  And by ‘we’, I mean ‘I’.  I have some will, I have quite a lot foresight, I don’t yet have the energy.  Working on that.  I have signed up for a one day bookbinding course in May as a start.  Turning back time in my own way.

before the ipad, the telly, the vdu…