Who knows where the time goes?

Time is the strangest of measurements. We act as if it were precise: My flight is scheduled to arrive at 11:11. I run a mile in 9:19:32 (Yes, that slowly). I am instructed to steep my tea for 4.5 minutes.

But time is also utterly malleable. Consider the obvious. (Well, obvious if you’ve read Counterclockwise and/ or a number of posts on this site. Hint. Hint.) The measurement of your time on earth – your chronological age – is a precise number. It is the exact moment of your birth, noted diligently in hospital records. But that number does not measure your true age, the age of your body. That age – your biological age – as I have been arguing (and as the evolving science of aging clearly states) – can be considerably older or younger than your birth date age.

You can manipulate (biological) time. You can fast-forward it by –choose your poison — smoking, sitting on your butt, isolating yourself socially, handling stress poorly, eating Doritos. Or you can turn it back by being physically and intellectually active, nurturing relationships, eating healthy and staying engaged in the stuff of life.

That’s malleable time. Then there is the deep subjectivity of the experience of time. We often say – I say this, and feel this, all too frequently – that time has “speeded up” as I’ve gotten older. I don’t know where the day went, the week. Is it really almost summer…what happened to spring, to winter? How can my daughter have a driver’s license already? Where does the time go?

And it’s not like I live life in the fast lane, for goodness sakes. I’m a writer not a Wall Street trader. I live in the country not in the heart of Tokyo. But still, life speeds by.

…But not recently. Recently, time slowed for me in a wondrous way that is teaching me a good – and very different — counterclockwise lesson. Last week I accompanied one of my sons on the first three days of what for him will be a 3-month cross-country solo bicycle trip. Each of those three days was packed with experience: The crazy rain of day one, the sweet smell of wet hay, the flat tire, the hot chocolate. The 22 miles of switchbacks on day two, the rebel yell when we saw the 5000-foot elevation sign, the peanut butter and banana sandwich that was so good I almost cried. The warm central Oregon sun of day three, the straight-aways and unexpected steep hills, the long good-bye, the ride back to Sisters, solo.

Those days did not zip by. They played out slowly, with – and I know this doesn’t make much sense – languorous intensity. I went on this trip to spend special time with my son. I thought the challenge, and the lesson I would learn about myself, would be physical. I did learn about my strength and resilience. (And just how saturated water-proof clothing could get.) But I learned something more important. I learned that packing your life with challenges and seeking new experiences slows time. Those three days made me feel like a kid again. I remembered that time in my life when a week was a long, long time, when summer was forever. And so, during these three very special days, I moved the clock backward both by challenging my body and my psyche.