Devonne Brown

“Keep your hands busy and the hours will pass like minutes,” she said while she pulled the  needle up through the fabric. “Don’t let your mind dwell on the world around you. Focus inside yourself. Focus on that which you create. The blanket with the yarn, the dress with the fabric, the stories with the words. Focus makes the hours pass like minutes.” Those were Mom’s words. 

She was always right. Damn it. 

Worry does take forever, doesn’t it?. So does life with distractions. Arguments, niggly things, like bills to pay, and decisions to make, relationships to make or break, or even have, make time crawl at a snail’s pace. It’s awful when time hurts as it passes, isn’t it?

“What we need here is a happy medium.” I butted in. “A place where time passes slow with delight. Like a kid sitting on the edge of the moon with a fishing pole, that kind of time passes slowly and memorably. Staying locked into focus all the time is exhausting. I need to calm down sometimes.

I look for things to do that make the hours pass like minutes and it always comes back to my hands and mind. I turn to crochet, sewing, gardening, reading, and pretend. I was trained well in mountain remedies for boredom. Though you can’t call it pretend when you’re grown up, you call it a secret.