Going Inkless

"How do you expect to come loose in time when you pay so much attention to the clock," I've been known to say. Usually, I say this jokingly to my husband when he grumbles about coming in a minute or two off his estimate on some matter of timing. He's got a very good sense of it, and misjudgments of time don't happen too often. The inferences in my comment are three: A. Coming unglued and sliding around randomly in time as we know it would be desirable. B. The things we use to gauge time, the clocks and watches and calendars, have power over time itself. C. I am somehow less encumbered by the concept than most, and I am in a position to offer advice on it. These are only partly true. While coming loose in time might seem like a scary proposition to most, you would have to admit it probably wouldn't be boring. Imagine visiting any point in your life or in time as a whole, times from your past or future, other eras in history. You could revisit gran...

It was just about a week ago that I woke to snow falling soft and steady. It wasn't bitter cold, but it was the type of winter day that promised a slow, patient rise in the snowdrifts and the inescapable erasure of footprints and sidewalks. The path my husband had shoveled to free his car that morning was all but invisible by the time I peeked out at the driveway. Somewhere out in the haze of snowflakes, snow day magic whispered. There's beauty and comfort in an unstoppable snowfall when there's nowhere you have to go. As luck would have it, I had scheduled a vacation day, so I was in no rush, but there was a slate of errands I needed to accomplish in the precious free time. After a few chores around the house, I peeked again and noted that the carapace was still thickening on my car with no sign of slowing. Wait too much longer, and I might not be able to escape the driveway. Running those errands certainly wasn't going to get any easier. So I dug out and star...