Calendar. I know the Incas

December 31, 2002

Calendar. I know the Incas had one and the impulse to keep track of time may be a basic instinct. Why? Why does anybody want to keep track? The reminders are omnipresent. Everything around you takes care of the time telling. Seasons, growth, decay, fatigue, sunset, hunger, sustenance, sunrise, waves, and squalls. Those are the elemental calendar. I could never get past that. Through school I could never tell what class was up next without looking at the list. The calendar was for getting me on the same page as everyone else. I still need constant reminders and my day is sealed up tight with the responsibilities of parenthood and the things I need to do to keep so many boats afloat. I think that is what the list is for. It binds people already bound to the same place to the rest of the package. The place is not enough. A culture is built on doing things together and that requires “the list”. Some celebrate it. I usually endure it. Begrudgingly I accept its value. There is a dialectic (sorry to use that word) of value in my struggles against “the list”. In it I realize the bi-product of wasted time. This is where all fresh ideas exist. Wasted time is written in lemon juice in the margins of the calendar. Place it over a hot light bulb and another dimension is revealed. It happens to you when you rebel against what is written in the legislated areas. These are the small gray countries on the map that have not been designated colours just yet. On the map of South America Peru may be pink. Chile is green. The first country north into Central America is “grayed out”. It is not one of the “focus countries”. This is where you must go for the exotic ripe fruit. Everyone else is picking from the trees in what appears to be the lush pink and green. The gray area is beyond the border into indiscipline. Discipline yields guaranteed results but indiscipline beckons like the all night Casino next to the hotel on the fifth night of the lonely business trip. All things random and spectacular can be mined in the gray area. So here’s to celebrating the love hate relationship with the clock and the calendar. There are secret months within the legislated years. Here’s to more of those in the coming 2003. Here’s to a big fat year with extra time spilling out the sides for us all to enjoy.