who knows where the time goes?

sandy denny's windswept lonely song is never far from my mind. her voice, the scratchy british grandeur of it. the images and waves of richard thompson's guitar. and her question, a heartbeat that sounds like home.
who does know? it's a riddle, a koan, a question mark that rolls on and on.
i know it's all circling, never resting. it's not a straight line the way we imagine in times of too much to do and the choking worry of not enough time to get it all done; not a ruler to be checked off in millimeters or inches, hours or minutes.
more a river that we swim or wade along.
i remember september and october and november. writing, scrubbing old walls till they are clean enough to paint. remembering and forgetting.
and here it's december, nearly the end of. i treasure the last days of each year, reluctant to let the number i've finally gotten used to -- 2010 -- leave; reluctant to get used to the new one. they change so fast.
a story before going.
on christmas day, i was in a tiny church in the florida panhandle. it was my grandmother's, when she retired to that corner of the gulf of mexico, and then my parents. my father's last christmas -- 2003 -- he'd created a songbook of christmas hymns for the church, joined the choir to add his voice to theirs. i'd gone in hopes of seeing a copy, snagging one even.
i arrived late, grabbed a seat in the back, grateful to sing those once-a-year songs with a crowd of strangers.
across the aisle, a huge man in a hunting jacket held a whimpering yorkshire terrier on his lap. everyone pretended to ignore it. i wondered how he'd gotten it past the usher.
finally, at a quiet part in the homily, a woman in a bulky fur turns around to complain to the wife, who wears all black but for a thin gold ribbon banded around her short gray hair.
"can you please do something?" she whispers. "the dog is distracting me."
the big man doesn't give his wife time to answer. "it's a baby," he hisses, "alright? he can't help it!"
her white-headed husband turns around to see who's yelling at his wife.
"don't stare at me!" the big man says, louder. "turn around! you can move if you don't like it!"
it's right in the middle of the sermon, and for a second we wonder if the young priest will intervene.
he's up there talking about light and love and waiting and the birth of a tiny king and his audience is torn.
the fur coat and her husband stand without looking back and move five pews up.
the big guy pets the pocket-sized fur coat in his lap and stares straight ahead.
finally, he gets up slowly with his dog and walks out the door.
his gold-banded wife looks around with a smile, nodding at anyone whose eye she can catch, "sorry. i'm sorry. sorry."
and on it goes.
the little gap inside what was expected closes, and everyone sings aloud the words they know by heart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2xODjbfYw8