What is Time but another Man's Invention

"My milkshake excursion turned in to a 5 hour road trip."
Emmy and I keep each other company over the phone while we both follow separate, seemingly aimless, roads towards home. Emmy in Chicago, me, somewhere in Tennessee. A few calls drop as I snake thru the foothills, but we still manage to talk for an hour. Our conversation is almost like having her here. But, I miss having her here. When you're with Emmy she lets you speak in fairytales. Conversations are always riddled with imaginative, whimsical candor. Her bird-like whistle around the house--and if you were lucky enough, the chorus of a song she was learning. I do believe our mountain is magic, but I also know that Emmy holds her own magic. What else would have allowed her to charm our cat with philosophical questions?: "Why is the sky blue? Hey, Pem. Why does the grass grow?" How else could she have created those bone warming communal meals for the mountain?(I am speaking specifically, of course, of the Best Chicken Breast Dinner Ever). Who, but Emmy could reassuringly remind us, (usually when she was running extremely late), "What is time but another man's invention?" "The timing doesn't feel right," she says over the phone as we toss around ideas about places we could go where our light would shine brightest. "Feel it out. Something will happen." There is not a trace of doubt in my voice. We both know there is nothing to fear. Once you realize this fact, everything becomes intrinsically different. Are you afraid? Afraid of what, failure? Neither success nor failure are scary. They are both experiences laden among all the other happenings that help build a full life. Edith Wharton said, "Life is always either a tightrope or a feather bed. Give me the tightrope". May we all have numerous experiences, stretching each to its extreme. May we cross into our imagination often and remember to look at the stars. Above all, may we try our hardest to have a Big Life--to emulate the visceral explosion I happened to have witnessed the very first time I saw Emmy, wailing loud in to the mic. We didn't know it then, but looking back, Emmy--the timing couldn't have been better.