Today I am thinking about time. How quickly the years go and how slow the hours. I am sitting in a tiny coffee shop in a small Indiana Town. A fun find in the middle of nowhere. . . or somewhere, depending on your view. It is quirky and artsy, and best of all, it serves Bananas Foster Latte.  I didn’t intend to be here.  I have no reason to be here, except that my daughter asked me to come with her on a road trip. She called from Los Angeles and asked if she could fly home and stay a few days. Her college friend decided to have an impromptu wedding, and my beautiful girl is a bridesmaid. So yesterday I chauffeured her from St. Louis to Indiana. Today I am sitting in a coffee shop while she attends to her friend’s big day.

Time is a funny thing. It seems like just yesterday I was running around like a crazy person putting the finishing touches on my own wedding. Curling irons heating, slips, dresses, makeup bags and high heels scattered throughout the house…anticipation in the air…friends’ laughter. Sometime in the fuzzy waves of time, I also remember dressing my daughter as a flower girl for my brother’s wedding. Her little satin dress and classic updo were adorable. The smiles, the hairspray, the rush to be ready in time to leave for the church all ethereal memories. And in a blink, she is standing in blue at her high school friend’s wedding. Long dark hair curled to perfection, big laughing eyes, tummy rumbling because there was no time to eat lunch, a look of horror when the girl standing next her passed out during the ceremony. At some point before or after, she and I coordinated an outdoor family wedding. An early morning gathering to set up tables, decorations of wood and burlap. She. . . in my dress taking pictures. Me. . . filling the air with song. A cool breeze and sunshine on the lake. In a moment, it was her own wedding day. Lighted make-up tables, white satin and tulle hanging behind a dressing screen, sunset on the river, the soft light falling on the vineyard, three generations of women singing with the wedding band. The memories are so vivid.

Time passes so quickly and yet my current challenge is how to spend the next few hours. I have a whole morning to fill and nothing to do. What does an actual chauffeur do to pass the time? I have no idea, and it has been a while since I was a carpool mom. I am a veteran of sitting in the bleachers and in parking lots waiting to retrieve my children. Even time can’t make me forget the years of shuttling to practices and events. I can almost smell the fresh cut grass and the dirt. The lawn chairs and the car seats were hot and sticky in the summer and freezing cold in winter. I was the master of multi-tasking. My Blackberry in hand (if you are under 40, perhaps you should google it)….or a project….or a book and I was ready to wait. Of course I did get come complaints. “Why can’t you just sit there like the other moms?” “Why do you always have to be doing things?” “You say you watch me, but every time I look over you are reading something.” Guilty as charged. Juggling a career and family was a constant race against time. A race that I couldn’t really win. A race I sometimes didn’t want to run. A race that I was determined to conquer. It seems like just a few days ago.

I confess, I am not very good at just sitting. In truth, I could be sitting here just sipping my coffee. Instead, I am doing battle with words to pass the time.  I eye the shops along main street and wonder how soon they will open so that I can take a stroll. I will likely check my email and answer a few inquiries from work first, even though I am mostly retired. I guess some things don’t change with time. I no longer feel like I am sprinting, but I will likely always be in motion. To experience new places, new ideas, new challenges is to be alive. Time has no meaning when I am moving forward. Time goes very slowly when I am at rest. I am learning to live in the moment. To appreciate the time that I am in. To look forward with hope and to look back with gratitude.

This day will eventually end. The minutes will turn into hours and the hours into a day.  I will collect my beautiful child and drive her home.  In a few days I will put her on a plane back to Los Angeles and will count the weeks and months until I can see her again.  It will seem forever, and yet when she or her brother appear or I think of them, time will bend.  It is the same when I return to my parents’ house, or I spend time with my extended family and love ones.  Old bonds hold strong. Time is suspended. It is as if we have never left.  A familiar blanket of love wraps us together.  We have stories to tell of the time we have spent apart, but the memories take us back to yesterday.  The minutes we have together are too few, the time we spend apart is too long, and the love we share is eternal. Time is funny that way.