(Up)State of Mind

Growing up in a small town, I felt like there was so much time. So much time between interesting things to do; so many quiet, boring afternoons and evenings to endure until the next much-anticipated event: the next time to go see a movie, the next party, the next time I would see the boy I had a crush on, the next open mic. In that setting, endless free time was suffocating; it was the filler, the tasteless cereal you eat only to get to the prize at the bottom of the box. Stepping out of the house into a cool, dark, star-lit night or a hot summer afternoon with a cloudless blue sky, my only thought would be… “When will it be interesting? Will it always be empty like this?”

The Hudson River in December. (This picture reminds me of Magritte's L'Empire des Lumieres)

The answer is: No. I have to dig pretty far back to remember that feeling of the endlessness of free time, the hours to be filled, the space and the quiet and anticipation. When I go home to visit family these days, the constraints of time are completely opposite. Everything has to be crammed into six or seven extremely short days, all the meals, meet-ups, get-togethers, catching up, extended family visits and activities. I have to make a schedule as detailed and crammed as any deadline-week work schedule, just to make sure things can happen at the right time. When I step out into a cool, dark star-lit night now, I want to stand out there and see the stars, the moon; taste the moisture in the air, smell the rain, wander in the darkness. But often there isn't even time enough to let my eyes adapt to the darkness before I have to go do whatever is next on the schedule.

The woods behind my childhood home

Sometimes I get just a little taste of it though- a little reminder of the expanding nature of empty time. Last winter I went for a walk in the back woods, the woods that were even at that time being cut down for a new McMansion development. At that time it was silent, eight inches of ice-crusted snow on the ground, solid enough to walk tenderly on top without punching through. I stepped through the back gate and closed it behind me with a clink.The future cul-de-sac was invisible except for the utility rough-ins poking up here and there with little orange flags. Nobody out there, not even a squirrel or a bird making a sound. I walked through the woods until my toes were numb, listening for tiny winter noises and just observing what was new and what hadn't changed. With no pressing plans to keep, time expands. Other times I might get the same feeling on a summer evening, driving out into the farm fields to meet a high school friend, winding down two-lane roads with no other headlights in sight.

Future Cul-de-sac panorama behind my parents' house

Now I wonder- is it the nature of time in a small town, or is it the nature of time in pre-adulthood, or is it both? Maybe every time I revisit that area, I slip back into my pre-adult mindset and recapture the feeling of expanding free time, except it no longer seems like boredom to me. It tastes like freedom.