Time is an issue for me. It has been an issue for a long while. But not when I was a kid. Then time stretched out like a relaxed cat, lengthening in the sun, and I stretched with it. I played outside, high up in trees, pretending each limb was a room in my imaginary house—climbing from branch to branch to cook in my make-believe kitchen or stretch out on my pretend bed and take a long, luxurious nap. Sometimes I relaxed so completely, gazing up at the wide blue Texas sky, that I actually dozed off for a moment, especially if I was tucked safely in the crook of the tree. No, time when I was a kid was not a problem. Days unspooled, hour after delicious hour, and I was absorbed in my invented world, or in the doodlebug curling into a tight ball in the palm of my hand, or in the steady chug of my legs as I raced through the neighborhood on my Schwinn, tassels flying from the handlebars. Even now, thinking of those memories makes me breathe more deeply and recall the whir of a lawnmower and the sweet smell of freshly cut grass.

Fast-forward to my life today. I am at the orange grove, my dog barking now and then at rabbits or the occasional passing coyote outside, and I sit at my table writing. In contrast to my youth, time now feels as if it moves in a flash. Morning sunlight turns to evening darkness with what seems like a single walk around the grove, and then it is time for sleep, only to rise again with that same morning sun. The focus of my early years has given way to another kind of focus—one filled with responsibilities far removed from that tree, that doodle bug, or that bicycle. And yet I know the goal is to live each day with the spirit of that five-year-old self: relaxed, trusting, and aware. That is my hope. That is my goal.