We have some additional daylight in the mornings now, but only for a few more weeks. It’s been really foggy here this week, but we thought it might be pretty back in the Japanese Garden, so we headed there first. We weren’t so great at budgeting our time though – we had to rush a bit to get back to our car, and ended up being about five minutes late to school. There are worse things, I suppose.
When we were walking, I felt like there was a lot of discussion about our pace – not really whining, or complaining, or nagging, but just an everpresent reminder that we needed to keep moving to stay on schedule. That’s not my favorite takeaway from this place, and I try not to do it. But we were ambitious in our path, and distracted frequently along the way. It feels like our days are being compressed, a little more each day. It’s hard to spend the shrinking daylight hours at my desk at work. I want to be outside as much as possible. I want the luxury of taking the long way back to my car, I’m anxious to push myself more on my runs, but it feels like the season is resisting my efforts (and winning). That other season of hurry will be upon us soon, but I’m fighting that as well. Even when I seek out the relaxing there are constraints, pressures.
I dropped her off, rushed to work, and stayed busy (and productive) for the remainder of the day. But when I took a few minutes after dinner to look at the photos on my camera, they didn’t seem rushed at all. I look at them and I can hear her voice – she’s behind me, pausing on the bridge, or ahead of me, darting quickly over the zigzag one. I catch a glimpse of her between the trees. She knows where the stepping stones through the water shortcuts are, she knows which drinking fountains are still turned on. She knows how to turn the dials just so on the fish food dispensers so that they release four or five pellets for free. She always exaggerates the truth and tells me she got a dozen, maybe two. It makes a better story; the fish wait for her arrival, her perfect profile, the swish of her cape, her stolen gifts.
