Found time

This morning, it took me two hours to make what is normally a half-hour commute in to work. Ottawa is having a "light snowfall"(according to the weather report), which translates into driving snow, roads coated in greasy slush, and general automotive chaos.

Call me crazy, but I actually enjoy driving in weather like this. After all, everyone's stuck in the same mess, almost no one is making it anywhere on time, and there's nothing you can do to escape it ... so you might as well take it easy, let the traffic crawl, crank up the tunes, and relax.

I consider it "found time" -- one of those occasions when something happens (or, more often, doesn't happen) providing an unexpected moment of ... well ... freedom. Opportunity. Chance. You name it.

For me, there's a certain "Snow Day" quality about found time, even when it's spent sitting in stop-and-go traffic. For those few minutes or hours I have been given an exciting and unexpected gift: my time suddenly belongs to me. Not to the deadlines, or the errands, or the infinite number of "oughta-dos." After all, I'm sitting in a car, in a traffic jam, in a snowstorm. After a couple of quick calls on the cellphone to let people know I'll be late, there's not much else I can do except sit, look out the window, press the accelerator or brake (very gently) now and again, and let my mind wander.

I don't have much time these days to daydream -- or rather, I don't allow myself much time to daydream anymore. There's always something else to do or think about or solve or fret over. But, as I grow older, I'm missing that piece of myself more and more; and I know it's time for me to learn how to play again, how not to worry, how to dream and drift like the child I used to be.

A couple of hours in a traffic jam isn't much, but at least it's a start. Wish me luck.