Riff Raff, Outsiders, and the Stones
I saw on YouTube a meme for the Outsiders’ song “Time Won’t Let Me”, and if you grew up when I did you for sure know that song and it’s a very good one, and in fact I sang in a high-school band named ‘The Druids’ and we covered that song, not too bad either.
The meme sighting, five minutes ago, came on and in a morning when time has been on my mind, spilling over from thoughts about time last night, safely back in my room after the always-crazed drive back from the kids and San Marcos. Before I retired in 2011, I remembered, for at least the preceding four or five years, the time thing did a switcheroo from my normal and I’m guessing most peoples’ normal, where the work weeks flew by and the weekends seemed to last forever. Seriously. No shit. And I was quite aware of that (Rocky Horror) time-flip, and rejoiced in it. Then I retired and the days wove together, and the primary awareness of weekend time was when my wife wasn’t going to work and I got to hang out with her nearly all of that time – they were many of the most special hours, days, weeks, and years of my life. Those moments.
But, you know, the divorce came (speaking of time -11am on a Wednesday) and I drifted, blown by a caring, playful breeze down to the Southern California coast and found myself in the need of un-retirement, with pretty much insane rent obligations, and I went back to work. With the kids, in San Marcos. And now, corresponding from here just up the hill from downtown San Diego, some four hours of each week I’m gifted is given to commutes to and from, and there’s that, and even more, the time experiential thing has sort of swung back to younger days, in which my two days on go by okay, and my five days off – during which I forever tell myself I’m retired again – slip by just a little too quickly for my taste.
But, you know me – a warrior on the middle way. So, wishing it was different? Nah, not so much. I see time going, and I get that as long as I’m blessed to wake up another morning with more spots all over my skin and wilder child-like thrills in my heart, time will – as they say it does with all us older cats – go flying by. And you’ll find me rejoicing in it.
So, as much as I’ve loved the song all these years, “Time Won’t Let Me”? That ain’t right. Time does nothing but let me. While never a fan of The Stones, I’m way more in the camp of “Time Is On My Side” these days.
Where else could I be?