SOME BASIC RULES

But he lived when the days were longer (for time, like money, is measured by our needs), when summer afternoons were spacious, and the clock ticked slowly in the winter evenings.

— George Eliot

They say it flies when you’re having fun.  The inverse follows neatly, and seems to apply in most cases.  Or to draw a more precise rule, suitable for all situations: the days, from inside, are longer than their sum, looking backwards.

And for further precision: a year is shorter upon realizing that your niece has now been alive for nearly that long.  A year ago, we were still waiting to find out what she would look like.  A few days hence will mark the anniversary of finding out, and of her first discovering what our faces looked like.

Another rule for consideration: the clock pauses in the space necessary for a jar of nutmeg, almost full, to plunge to an untimely death.  There was a moment of sluggish realization, and leisure to wonder if I could intercept it after all.  Then followed an analysis of the jar, and mightn’t it be plastic, and perhaps things wouldn’t turn out too terribly?  Despite the inconvenience of the shards of glass, it was the richest-smelling mess I’ve ever cleaned, and pleasant in that sense.

Finally: two months, when comprising the entirety of the school remaining, is intolerably long.  I call my calendar a liar when it claims that these days are the same as any others; surely they have gotten larger, but the squares are, upon scrutiny, quite usual.  And four years have been the breadth of a heartbeat or wider than oceans, depending on my perspective as I glance over my shoulder.  It is always changing.  But how wise are we, though we believe we’ve mastered it, to put rules to something so changeful and elusive?