Steamed broccoli with vinegar and soy sauce. It’s common to hear people around my age say they never know where the time all went and you wake up one morning to realize that months or years have gone by. Everyone seems to agree with this. It’s one of those prewritten remarks you can use at a dinner party when you need to fill the silence. It may be that I’m naturally inclined to argue with the common wisdom, but I don’t find this to be the case at all. Possibly it’s because for most of my life I’ve kept daily journals or blogs that chart the difference between one day and the next: So if I look back, for example, to around four months ago, I had a different job and we were dodging through the cold rain. Six months ago I stayed for a week in a place with a ski trail down the street from the house. Time only goes away if you don’t capture it first. Three years ago, we lived in a condo across from a burger place on the other side of the parking lot. A year and a half ago, we were wandering through the streets in Barcelona. Twenty years ago, I was home for the summer and commuting to work in West Des Moines. A week ago, there was a European Union. In another few months we’ll be wearing dark clothes again and there is a lot that could change in our lives and in the world around us, but there are plenty of things that might or might not happen until then.

(Photo: Patuxent River, Southern Maryland.)

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