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My Life, As Told Between (Baby Cakes') Naps

Time

30th October 2005

Time

posted in Friends, Family, Et Al., Running, The Slightly Deeper End |

Celebrated JL’s 27th birthday, and over 15 years of friendship, while I was home. JL is one of my Quad friends (a name that seemed very clever back in high school). It constantly amazes me how the four of us have weathered this much time together. We’ve all spent more than half our lives with each other, although it’s rare to have the four of us in the same city nowadays. The last time we were all able to meet up was in Vegas this June, where, in increasingly typical Quad fashion, two of us bailed on the first day. Me for work and another member for a bridal shower. I showed up sick and tired but put on my best face – which was horrible to say the least. I am not good at faking being well, although I excel at exaggerating being sick.

Got sick again this weekend while out and about in the artic tundra that is northern California. (Seriously, what has LA done to me?) I spent all weekend shivering. Am a little proud of the fact that I risked frostbite to go running on Friday, something, by the way, one does not do in San Jose if one is not prepared to face an onslaught of staring strangers. Running outside the confines of a gym is not a particularly common phenomenon in San Jose.

Being at home always makes me think about the passage of time and, somewhat oddly yet maybe understandably, makes me want to read T.S. Eliot (whom I do not profess to understand at all). Anyways, with that in mind, I thought I’d share one of my favorite passages from one of my favorite poems, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;  
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

If I actually did have time, I’d write pages and pages about why I love this poem and its imagery and allusions, how it applies to this post in particular, and why it’s sad and beautiful in its entirety, but I have to get back to billing. (Plus, I try to remain somewhat aware of everyone’s attention span!)

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  1. 1 On March 16th, 2007, My Life, As Told Between Naps » The In-Between Time said:

    […] One of my best (Quad) friends actually lives in LA, but somehow we’ve both fashioned lives for ourselves that don’t really include each other. I know she’s always there for me and I’m there for her, but the only time we really spend any time together is during Quad reunions – one of which is coming up this weekend! We’re taking a break from our routines and heading out to a beach-side cottage in Santa Barbara for our third annual Quad Reunion. (We went to Vegas two years ago and Tahoe last year.) I hope we manage to take a trip together every year, regardless of what life brings us. It’s all too easy to take friends for granted and assume they’ll be there when you need them. I’m trying to remember how important it is to nurture these friendships in the in-between time. […]