Forrest Gump Must Stop......

The next few days will be what Americans happily call a “long weekend,” adding a Monday to the normal weekend—President’s Day 2007. Though I have much sleep deprivation, a house guest, and I really do want to go visit with my sisters whom I miss very much, I’m not looking forward to this “Long Weekend,” which puts the breaks on the momentum I built up during the past week, running around, working, going to meetings, going to events, keeping really busy and trying to forget the thoughts that run through me. Since last Friday, I have resembled Forrest Gump, running and running and never stopping! Well, can’t do much about it, so I might as well go with the flow. My friend Parvin is back in town this afternoon, and we will go to dinner and a Simon Shaheen concert together at the Zellerbach tonight. My wonderful young musician friend, Hamed, will also have a concert tomorrow night which we will attend. I try to fill in all the moments and hours of the imaginary calendar in my head which is “This Weekend.” I keep reminding myself that there have been hundreds of times when time went by too quickly and it felt like a dream to have experienced certain expanses of time, like when I went to a short trip to a pleasant spot, or when I was looking forward to a gathering for weeks and it went by so quickly. I then remind myself that there have also been other times, ridden with pain and anguish, when time went by even more slowly than it does these days. My life does not have those pains and anguishes anymore. I am free of the source of that pain and anguish, and I must learn to savor and appreciate this freedom, even if I don’t quite know what to do with myself, yet. Time is a relative thing, I tell myself. I add it to the list of all other things I have by now discovered to be relative. I learn.