Wasting Time

My dad is balancing a full mug of coffee on top of the cup holder in his 1996 white Toyota Camry. It is balancing because it is a regular coffee mug, like one we would sit down at our kitchen island with. The cup holder, of course, is designed to hold many other types of cups, but not an actual mug, so the mug doesn’t fit inside of the cup holder.

My father had to set it down because he has to shift gears with his coffee-holding hand. We have been inching through morning rush hour traffic on the Superstition Freeway as we make our way to his office in downtown Phoenix. Because the car has a manual transmission, Dad keeps having to shift from a stop, to first gear, to second gear, until we stop again.

I can’t remember why I am not holding the coffee mug, so I assume I was already holding my own coffee mug and whatever I was eating for breakfast, making my hands full. It is either summer or winter break–hard to say which, since the freeway in Mesa looks the same at either time of year in my memory–so I have opted to tag along with my dad to work since I am not at school.

My dad’s nostrils are flared and I can discern a vein become more visible on his neck as a steady stream of expletives pour from his mouth.

“WHAT is the hold up? It can’t possibly be an accident. I don’t see any lights up ahead. Why CAN’T PEOPLE JUST DRIVE?”

“Dad–being angry about it isn’t going to make traffic move faster. Besides, isn’t traffic usually this bad?” I ask.

“Yes. But I don’t understand WHY it has to be so bad every day,” he groans, taking a moment to grab his mug and slurp some coffee out of it before he has to shift gears again.

I want to reassure my father and make him feel better, but I do not know what to say. The only other time he gets this visibly worked up is when he is fighting with my mother. And like fighting with my mother, getting angry about morning rush hour traffic in the burgeoning Phoenix metro area seems pointless to me. No matter how much screaming and shouting you do, the outcome will be the same.

“I don’t think there is any point in getting mad at the traffic,” I say.

“I just wish people would hurry the FUCK UP.”

At that moment, I cannot imagine being so upset at something so inevitable as traffic.

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Ten years later, I am sitting in my Prius. NPR is droning on the radio, but I realize am staring at the digital clock in the dash so intently I do not even know what the news cast is about.

We are late. Correction, I think to myself, Dan is late. He has a doctor’s appointment in Philly this morning. Even though the hospital is only about eight miles away from our apartment in Maple Shade, New Jersey, it will take us at least 30 minutes to get there. I look at the time and start to do the mental math to figure out how much more time can go by before we will have to call the hospital to tell them we are running late. Although the subtraction isn’t difficult for me normally, I struggle with the calculation: my thoughts have the fuzziness that comes with too little sleep over too many days.

I got up extra early to avoid this situation, which occurred every time Dan had to be anywhere for any appointment. I would shower extra quickly and make us breakfast, repeating to myself all the while I was going to focus on being patient, focus on not being impatient. Today is going to different, I told myself, we are going to make it there relatively on time because I took these steps so we could be successful.

But the day was turning out like so many days before. All of my planning has resulted in no difference. I can feel my pulse start to quicken as my mind begins to race. It is so frustrating to try so hard to approach a situation differently, only to end up with the same result.

I get out of the car and walk up to the front door of our apartment. I throw open the door, banging it against the door stop as I feel my temper slipping away from me.

“Dan! Hurry the FUCK UP!”

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I just finished reading The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs. It is her memoir about her two-year struggle with cancer, from the time of her diagnosis to just a few months before her passing. The book was recommended on one of the pop culture podcasts I listen to (Pop Rocket). My main draw to the book was to learn more about one person’s narrative of their dealings with imminent mortality. It is a chance to learn more about a person’s thoughts on death and dying without worrying about the exploitative facets that could be present in other non-fiction works dealing with the subject of mortality.

The thing that surprised me the most about her narrative was how, at least in Ms. Riggs’ telling, time seemed to keep a steady pace as she dealt with living her life with cancer. I expected time, or at least the author’s perception of time, to accelerate or collapse as her condition worsened and it became clearer how little time she likely had left. Instead, living with her husband and her young sons (both less than 10 years old), the day-to-day actions of life continue on despite the changes to her health. Kids go to school, husband goes to work, friends come over, vacations happen.

One thorny issue of examining this narrative is the socio-economic privilege underlying this family’s ability to get cutting edge cancer treatment at Duke and still continue to maintain the lifestyle they are accustomed to. This is likely one large contributing factor allowing for things, including time, to continue on “as they are”.

The pace of time in the book reminded me again of the things I have remembered when people I love have died. While I have fond memories of some big events (weddings, vacations, birthdays), what I remember and miss most are the every day events: trips to the grocery store, afternoon phone calls just to say hello, summer days sitting on a porch drinking. These most treasured memories are usually languid in their pace, slow, sweet honey dripping in my mind.

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One of the biggest gifts I have received as a result of the choices I have made to change my life during the last two and a half years is more time. I have time to work out, time to write, time to hike, time to read. Time itself seems more malleable.

While a big factor in my previously harried life was the people I was choosing to spend my time with, an inherent factor is I am my father’s son: I can be impatient to get things done. I want processes to be effective and when they are not, I can become irked. At work, I love the speed and momentum inherent in working on site with clients and meeting deadlines.

Basil helps me slow down time. He has shown me it is possible to still be on time to appointments and social engagements while not having to constantly rush. Because he makes things I want to do a priority, I don’t feel the need to overbook days off or vacations. I don’t have to worry that if I don’t get to do something today, I might not get to do it at all. If I don’t have client deadlines or firm deadlines that need to be met during a particular day at work, I am less hesitant to unlplug an hour or two early, or take an afternoon to work at a more leisurely pace.

Unlike Ms. Riggs, my father didn’t know how many days, months, years he had left each  morning he battled Phoenix rush hour traffic.  When I was sitting the car with him, I focused on the anger he expressed. What I hear now are faint notes of underlying panic as time my father would have rather spent doing nearly anything else slipped from his grasp.