I have an electric toothbrush. I bought it for just the reason that it has prompted this blog post —- it makes me brush my teeth for two minutes. And last night those two minutes seemed like two hours. So did the tea kettle’s time spent coming to a boil this morning so I could do my pour-over coffee before heading out in the just-dawn light to harvest our produce. And, the dryer I set for 45 minutes on that rainy afternoon this week, instead of the usual clothesline, seemingly took twice that long, as I counted the dollars it was adding to my gas bill. What about the damn red light at the Safeway parking lot in Kapaa, huh? That thing is hours and hours long, or at least feels like it. And yet, wasn’t it just a bit ago that I was nursing a baby to sleep? And just a year or two that I kissed a wee one good-bye as they headed to kindergarten? Oh, and the time I walked to mass with my father just to make him happy—wasn’t that just recently? And shared a cocktail and a giggle with my mom?—that could not have been more than 20 years ago!!!

 The moments can stretch out interminably. The days can be long. The weeks just whiz by and surely the years are short. And getting shorter every year. Time. So elusive.