Somewhere in time

Timing is everything.

Whether you're catching a bus or picking a time to have an important conversation with a friend, the timing has to be right. I'm sitting on a sidewalk, hacking onto the WiFi of some hair salon that is (thankfully) nearby, due to my bad timing. After an appointment, I needed to get online to plan my bus route back home. I went to an espresso shop where they had internet, but foolishly decided that I needed coffee first. Had I merely gone online and entered my information, I would be on my first bus home right now. Instead, I'm sipping on my iced shot-in-the-dark (two sugars and cream) and sitting on a curb by a bus stop, waiting for the 66 express to come, seeing as I missed the first one.

Huh. A man with a braid in his beard just walked by me and said "you'd make a good advertisement for Mac." Um, thank you?

Anyway, back to my topic. While I would be on a bus right now if my timing had been right, I wouldn't have gotten my caffeine fix. I also wouldn't be enjoying a lovely warm breeze and writing about timing. Life is funny like that sometimes.

Time is a fickle thing. It flies when we want it to crawl, it crawls when we want it to fly. Time escapes us, time costs us, time hurts us, time heals us. Time does a variety of things to and around us. And knowing the right way to use your time and timing can be very important. In the workshop I'm doing right now, we're getting ready this week to start rehearsing a show next week. It's a slow tempo show, which means no dialogue. More importantly, it means that if your average tempo (as far as moving goes) is 100%, we're moving at 5%. That is some pretty important timing. We have done a few exercises and spent a little time in slow tempo to prepare ourselves, and while it's hard for the first while, it's really amazing. That's timing too.

Timing means knowing when to say something and when to keep quiet about it. Timing is all about the when. Other aspects of life are about the who and the where and the what, but time is the when. Timing and art, at least performing art, are inseparable in my opinion. Music, dancing, acting, all of these things rely heavily on timing. Relationships are all about timing. I'm not talking romantic, since I don't know much about those, I'm talking about familial, business, friend, whatever. You have to know when to say something, when to listen, when to ask, when to answer. You can't move too quickly or too slowly. Right now, I'm having trouble adjusting to the timing of one of my friendships. We had a tiff recently, and my friend is the type of person who, when you have a fight with her, you just need to give her time to come back to you. So I've been trying to respect that and not annoy her, but in all honesty, it's really hard to have a gap where she usually is. I hope she will fill that gap again, and I will do everything in my power to make sure she does, but most of it is on timing's shoulders.

Time is something we never seem to have enough of either, so today I challenge you to try and make time for yourself every day for a week. Even if it's five minutes or half an hour as you wait for the second bus to come while sipping a coffee.

Cheers,

T.A.D.