Time is a construct, in reality everything flows, no past or present, only the now.

In a strange confluence of words and images, I seem to be focused on the subject of time these days. Maybe it's just that all my library requests over the last several months appeared at once, but it has made me wonder if time is on everyone else's mind, too. But then again it is something we all have experience with.

I listened to the audiobook version of Kate Atkinson's  Life After Life while I was doing all that sewing. Her ingenious structure of the story of a woman who lives her life over and over again was as pleasurable as watching one of my all time favourite movies, Groundhog Day.

“Time is a construct, in reality everything flows, no past or present, only the now” is a quote from Life After Life, but it could have just as easily come from Ruth Ozeki's wonderful  A Tale for the Time Being. I particularly appreciated Ozeki's note-perfect descriptions of Gulf Island life, which helped make all the other threads of the story seem just as credible and real.

And Claudia Hammond's non-fiction exploration of our perception of time, Time Warped,  is quite fascinating. You might want to save it for January, when you will have more of that precious commodity to savour it.

I do like the Yarn Harlot's idea for the Christmas gift of a time machine. From her December 16th post:

Gifts for knitters: Some Sort of Time Machine.

You've probably noticed that your knitter likes to knit. You might even have noticed that they like it a lot better than all of the other stuff they're supposed to be doing (see above re: bathtub scrubbing.)  I could be projecting here (but I am pretty sure I'm not) when I say there's nothing your knitter wants more than a few more hours in a day to knit - and I know what you're thinking. "Hey Crazy Lady who watches too much Dr Who, there's no such thing as a time machine", but you'd be wrong.  You can be the time machine for your knitter.  An awesome gift, as we come down to the wire, or you run out of money, is your time, given freely to your knitter.  A written commitment to doing some of the things that your knitter likes less than knitting to give them time to knit is an amazing gift.  A little note that says "I will be YOU for six hours" or "This coupon entitles the bearer to four undisturbed hours of knitting while I do chores they hate" or "This magic note can exchange 1 hour of cleaning for 1 hour of knitting" is going to be make you a rock star of gift giving.  Don't forget to use your best handwriting, and wrap it. 

And of course, speaking of Doctor Who, I have been catching up on the Matt Smith incarnation of everyone's favourite Time Lord on Netflix. Can't wait to see Peter Capaldi in the role - I loved him in another one of my favourite movies of all time: Local Hero.

And hey, time is running out to leave a comment on my Call it Karma post. Either I have very few readers or you are all too busy but the odds of winning a lovely prize are very, very good!