{"id":40424,"date":"2011-06-18T15:00:49","date_gmt":"2011-06-18T19:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=40424"},"modified":"2011-06-18T21:06:49","modified_gmt":"2011-06-19T01:06:49","slug":"time-enough-for-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/time-enough-for-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Time Enough For Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Maria Padhila<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cMy life is a sausage festival.\u201d It\u2019s not quite up there with the Weiner texts, but it shares something of the concept, if not their spirit, and it\u2019s what I texted to a friend the other day when she asked about going to a wine festival. I had to say no. Overbooked is the norm.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Poly Paradise at Burning Man. Photo by Eric.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I haven\u2019t been poly long, but it\u2019s been long enough to hear most of the standard jokes, like this one: \u201cWhat\u2019s the mating call of the polyamorists? Get out your calendars.\u201d I have heard about people who use adding or subtracting a partner from the Google calendar share list as a signifier of the significance of the relationship. Issac and I live, love, and argue by iCal; Chris doesn\u2019t have the technology, so I email him dates I\u2019m booked with Issac and family and friends. And still, disputes ensue.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because what we\u2019re arguing about here doesn\u2019t have anything to do with whether the format is Google or iCal. It\u2019s about the way we believe time equals love, attention, care. <\/p>\n

On the face of it, it makes sense. The popular programs of any time management gurus are predicated on the assumption that one sets priorities based on what one values, and allots time accordingly. From there also comes the notion of ‘quality time’, that is, you can stint on actual time spent on what\u2019s important to you if you really focus hard on it for a few seconds. But I can\u2019t lose sight that time management is an outgrowth of business; efficiency studies were birthed out of the same environment that gave us the assembly line. Could there be more to time than this? <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The other day, as I rushed down the sidewalk, my daughter\u2019s hand in one of my hands, my other hand holding a jar with some lemongrass stalks I\u2019ve been rooting, a computer bag on one shoulder, a lunch cooler and two tote bags on the other with snacks, drinks and food for us for 12 hours, gardening clothes, costumes, party clothes, a work outfit, and all the appropriate underwear and shoes to go with, with actual curlers in my hair, trying not only to make it in time for my daughter\u2019s rehearsal but to get the car off the street before official rush hour kicks in and I get a $100 ticket there\u2019s no way I can afford, and feeling my phone buzz and not knowing if it\u2019s work, Isaac, or a friend or family, and I just lost my train of thought.<\/p>\n

Oh yes — time. (By the way, I have Saturn conjunct Jupiter in the 8th in Capricorn — meaning my time is about other people\u2019s values and it\u2019s hard to keep a boundary on it, when I keep trying to believe it\u2019s expandable. Where\u2019s your Saturn? That\u2019s where the time goes.) I settle into the broiling car, open the windows and turn on the AC, and check back to see that my daughter\u2019s strapped into her car seat. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry we had to rush, baby,\u201d I tell her. \u201cI just try to do too much. My mommy, your grandmother, she always tries to do too much, too, and granddad gets worried and mad at her about it. I\u2019m going to have to find a way to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I like doing lots of things,\u201d she says. \u201cI want to do too much too.\u201d<\/p>\n

So do I. I don\u2019t want to have to stop any of it. Yet how my time is spent speaks to others about how I value them, apparently. It\u2019s an example of the primary\/secondary conflict, where the primary partner feels like he or she is the tofu, the economy car, the sweat pants, and the secondary is the tiramisu, the Porsche, the sequined minidress. The practical one vs. the fun one. The one who gets things done vs. the wild-night-out one. Putting two complex personalities into these roles is absurd and devalues them, but I can\u2019t argue with how someone feels. <\/p>\n

Isaac looks at the iCal and sees what looks like a long parade of date nights and weekends away at festivals with Chris. But the truth is, Chris and I don\u2019t have much money to spend, so what we do is not terribly glamorous — gardening, house parties, art — making it and viewing it. Isaac doesn\u2019t always see our own leisurely vacation plans, our own date nights, our hundreds of breakfasts over the Sunday papers, our yoga classes together, our nights dozing off while trying to catch up with an episode of Treme<\/em> on HBO, the hundreds of nights we go to sleep together and wake up together. He doesn\u2019t always realize the way some people who are single or away from their families for whatever reason sometimes wish they had someone to doze off with, to hug and kiss them when they get home, to eat cereal with, to ask them whether they got that mole checked. My complaining text seems a little hollow when put in the context of people who aren\u2019t getting as much sausage as they\u2019d like at the breakfast buffet, certainly. Sort of like the way I feel when a friend with a high-powered job and a salary to match talks about how busy she is, when I\u2019m wondering if I can hustle enough hours to keep the pay coming in. First-world problems, anyone? <\/p>\n

I ask Isaac flat out if he doesn\u2019t value that kind of time spent together. If it\u2019s worth something less because it\u2019s full of activities not traditionally regarded as exciting, not what we\u2019re supposed to find fun. If it\u2019s so dull and ordinary, why do so many people want nothing more than someone to wake up with? But there\u2019s no arguing with the way someone feels, or what they want. I try to program more fun nights for us into the calendar, and work on babysitters.<\/p>\n

Oddly, time spent with Chris begins to feel more regimented. We went to a regional Burning Man festival recently and felt a little like we were punching the clock, between setting up and running the camp, doing some cooking, tending the fire, keeping the air mattresses full, and taking care of our art projects. Around the fire the last night there, a younger woman, a performer who had been running herself all over the place, sat down and sighed: \u201cI haven\u2019t had any time to hang out with my boyfriend all weekend. And he\u2019s been hooking up every night!\u201d <\/p>\n

People who are more spiritual say when you live in the moment, time becomes meaningless, that you can touch infinity. There\u2019s not a place for that on the iCal. I\u2019d like to be serene and graceful instead of always racing the clock. I\u2019d like to never feel I had to count the time spent with anyone I love. Can we all get more time and more love than we\u2019ve been told is possible? Can Saturn be bargained with? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Maria Padhila \u201cMy life is a sausage festival.\u201d It\u2019s not quite up there with the Weiner texts, but it shares something of the concept, if not their spirit, and it\u2019s what I texted to a friend the other day when she asked about going to a wine festival. I had to say no. Overbooked … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":191,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1,207],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40424"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/191"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40424\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}