I recently bought a small painting. It’s a picture of an old barn. I hung it in a bare spot on the wall between my fireplace and my entertainment center. I took down a clock to make room for it. The clock was the centerpiece of my wife’s day in the latter stages of her dementia. At ten we went to the post office. At noon we ate lunch. At five we ate dinner. Every day. Most mornings also included a trip to the dollar store. Oddly enough, I maintained that schedule for a good while after she died.

But then I began to forget the post office, lunch came when I got hungry as did dinner. I stopped looking at the clock except when I had an appointment and even then, it wasn’t much help because it ran fast. Now I have a picture in its place. The picture runs neither fast nor slow. Rather it’s a tranquil bright spot of a scene where I’d like to go. There’s a lot to like about my new little picture. First of all, the barn isn’t in the center of the frame. It’s off to the left. There’s a big swatch of grass in front of it. Reminds me of Andrew Wyeth. Then there’s the hills beyond the barn, which remind me of my home.

When I cast my eye toward the painting, I feel as though I’m stepping through time which is a nice exchange for looking at a dark object that measured time. Of course, I still need to know what time it is, on occasion, but not every minute of every day. I am time. I measure it by my heart beats. By my breaths. By what I see and do. Time has become fluid once again, ebbing and flowing with the day, with the weather, with the sun and moon. And maybe one day, I’ll find out what’s in that barn.