OYM Day 96: Sliding

Does it ever happen to you? You’re driving to the grocery store or moving like a crane, back and forth, from the dishwasher to the cupboard. Maybe you’re folding the laundry or stealing a glance at yourself between tooth brushing and spitting. Does you feel it? When your head goes light and your legs start to lift off the ground? And all of the sudden you catch your breath in your chest and you’ve done it? You’ve slipped between the shift of time? It sounds like I’m speaking i poetry, but I’m being quite literal. It happens to me. I’ve read that time is not a constant speed and that motion happens in 2 dimensions. Even Einstein’s theory of relativity shows that two people moving relative to each other have their own times — and they’re not the same.

So, I’m asking you, do you ever feel it? The sudden dip in the change in your own time? Perhaps slowing or speeding up? Perhaps being absorbed by someone else’s? Because I think I can. It makes my body feel numb and suddenly confused. It’s as if I’ve suddenly come to and I wonder what just happened.

It happened again today. I was swirling lukewarm water and bubbles in the tub and pushing them both towards the drain. The sucking drain, the slick of my palm on the plastic tub, and the ever so faint pop of soapy suds… and suddenly I opened my eyes, my body on autopilot, my arms whirling around the water and my mouth moving, speaking softly to my daughter. I slipped.

I don’t know where I went or if I went anywhere at all. I wasn’t daydreaming or looking off in the distance. I was focused and present. And then I felt myself sliding. And then it was over.

It’s hard to describe, but I know when it’s happened. It’s not brain fog or exhaustion. It’s none of the things you’re thinking, but it’s exactly as I’m writing.

So, tell me, do you know what it feels like? What does it feel like to you? If you’ve never felt it, is time dragging or zooming past you? It changes, but tell me what it feels like now. I’m curious to know if the hands on your clock are throwing off a breeze or collecting dust.