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Windows of Time

Reflecting on time, I see that I have turned the page on yesterday and opened a new page for today. Tomorrow, the next day and probably for many more days to come, I will do exactly the same thing. So will many others people, including you.

But I have to ask, "Did yesterday's page go away, when I turned that leaf over?'

"Probably not?" I tell myself silently. "It just appears as if it did."

As I reflect further, I wonder if this new page that I see, is some kind of tabula rasa, as it appears to be a page that is totally blank right now. There is absolutely nothing that I can see written upon it, at least not yet. By the end of the day though, I suspect that there probably won't be a whole lot of room left on this page. It might even be totally filled.

Again, I have to ask this same question of time, "Was yesterday's page totally erased? Is that what happened when I turned the page over? Will today's page be erased as well, when tomorrow comes? Or has yesterday's page merely been concealed, so that today's and tomorrow's might be revealed?"

Time does not answer me of course, but then I really did not expect that it would.

What I see is the reality that the windows of time are always opening and closing, as well as revealing and concealing, so maybe the windows of time do offer us some kind of a tabula rasa after all? I really don't know.

When I look more closely, I realize that I can see new windows of time, opening all of the time, even while the old ones are still closing. The shiny, brand new windows of time are in sharp contrast to the older, battered windows of time, that have already been closed, or shattered. The broken shards of glass from those ones, may still lie somewhere on the hard cold ground of time, or maybe the pieces of glass lie hidden in the new spring grass?

If there is a brand new, blank page in the next, new morning of my time, which I am certain that there will be, does that mean that the entire blueprint for my entire life disappears too, when today's page is closed? "Probably not," I decide.

Thinking of blue prints in terms of time, I am reminded of a elderly gentleman, who I encountered many years ago, while I was working as a student nurse, posted on a psychiatric ward. He was a kindly old gray-haired man, who I found joyfully drawing huge blueprints, on a large round table, in the middle of his locked room. I immediately asked him what he was planning to build. He looked me straight in the eye and said, "I am designing a flying machine to get to heaven." He was very serious and totally out of reality, according to his psychiatrist.

By this time, all of his blueprints have probably faded away over time. He too, is more than likely wherever he was destined to be. Maybe he has a place where he is drawing new blueprints? For whatever? Who knows?

I casually look around at the people that I see every day, young and old, and marvel at the reality that each one has a new page for the morrow and probably some blueprint too, that I may never be aware of in time.

Then I begin to wonder, where did all of their other pages of time go?

Where do all of the blue prints of time go? No one really knows.

Maybe some of the older generation, have already filled their books? Perhaps there are others who have not quite completed theirs? Maybe some of their books were so full, that they had to start new ones, even in the present. But have all of the contents of all of their old books disappeared in time? Are they lost forever?

I wonder.

These are but a few reflections, or thoughts to ponder, as together we gaze through the windows of time.

Learn more about this author, W. Diane Van Zwol.
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