9 • SIX IMPOSSIBLE THINGS
BEFORE BREAKFAST
Late JuneWhen I was in college, living two states away from my family, I studied
the map one weekend and found a different route home from the one we
usually traveled. I drove back to Kentucky the new way, which did turn
out to be faster. During my visit I made sure all my relatives heard about
the navigational brilliance that saved me thirty- seven minutes.
“Thirty-seven,” my grandfather mused. “And here you just used up
fifteen of them telling all about it. What’s your plan for the other
twenty-two?”
Good question. I’m still stumped for an answer, whenever the religion
of time- saving pushes me to zip through a meal or a chore, rushing every-
body out the door to the next point on a schedule. All that hurry can blur
the truth that life is a zero- sum equation. Every minute I save will get
used on something else, possibly no more sublime than staring at the
newel post trying to remember what I just ran upstairs for. On the other
hand, attending to the task in front of me—even a quotidian chore—
might make it into part of a good day, rather than just a rock in the road to
someplace else.
I have a farmer friend who would defi nitely side with my grandfather
on the subject of time’s economies. He uses draft animals instead of a
tractor. Doesn’t it take an eternity to turn a whole field with a horse- driven