Where has the time gone? No one I’ve talked to knows, but we all agree that the fast-forward button seems to be stuck. Individual days may drag, but the weekend comes around again before we expect it. Weeks flash past, months rush across the calendar, even whole years hurtle by when we aren’t looking. And here we are, halfway through the second week of the second quarter of this century.

Writer and speaker Ann Voskamp says that in order to slow time’s rapid pace we must be all there in whatever place and time we find ourselves; give our full attention to what is happening right here, right now. 

 One way I’ve found to do this is to keep my own personal calendar of days meaningful to me, and only to me. I take note of the first day cold enough to use the fireplace, the first day warm enough to drive with my windows down, the day the first blossom appears on the squash vine, the day I pick the last tomato of the season. I keep track of first-hello-days, and sometimes last-goodbye-days. First-rain-after-drought days. First-unprompted-kiss-from-grandchild-days. Last-look-back-at-the-old-house days.

Noticing these moments, and writing them down, and re-reading them now and again somehow reminds me not only of specific instances, but also that these simple, “holy in ordinary” times are the real stuff of life.