There's a word for that?

The Sunrise River pools in Wyoming are starting to show expanses of skim ice. Smaller ponds in the area have become ice-covered. Temperatures seem to have settled into seasonal patterns. Weather that behaves as if this were a normal year is something for which we should be thankful. The year has been so strange that the Oxford Languages folks couldn't capture it in just one "word of the year," so they've produced a Words of an Unprecedented Year report.

water flows in both lines and cycles

Photo by J. Harrington

We understand their point but beg to differ with  their assessment. Each and every year is unique, N'est-ce pa? In fact, each and every moment has never occurred before and will not repeat itself, if we believe that time is linear. We're not sure how that concept plays out among Native American nations who consider time to be circular. Then, again, we can't begin to wrap our head around how long billions of light years might be. Didn't Einstein note something about a "time-space continuum?"

All of this is to suggest that we might want to seriously (re)consider any behavior that suggests any of us has a direct line to absolute truth. No, we haven't become an absolute relativist [see what we did there?], but we are trying to elevate our level of tolerance, which is a real challenge for a classic Type A control freak, not that we know anyone like that.

To return to the good folks who assert that this year has been unprecedented, we interpret that to mean that our holidays may not precisely follow the patterns of prior years nor, even, what we really want them to this year. That doesn't mean we should spoil the joys we could be experiencing by getting all bent out of shape that things aren't exactly what we wanted. The word for that type of reaction and behavior is "SPOILED." (Note to self, be sure to follow our own advice. 'Tis the season to chill.)

The Prophet: On Time

by Kahlil Gibran

And an astronomer said, "Master, what of Time?"

And he answered:

You would measure time the measureless and the immeasurable.
You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and seasons.
Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing.

Yet the timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness,
And knows that yesterday is but to-day's memory and to-morrow is to-day's dream.
And that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space.
Who among you does not feel that his power to love is boundless?
And yet who does not feel that very love, though boundless, encompassed within the centre of his being, and moving not from love thought to love thought, nor from love deeds to other love deeds?
And is not time even as love is, undivided and paceless?

But if in your thought you must measure time into seasons, let each season encircle all the other seasons,
And let to-day embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.

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