The Untamed Women event at Carnegie week before last was special. I invited a couple elder wild women that I know personally, and I quoted them in the presentation.
The first quote was from Ms. Barbara Price. While replacing the hooks on my wedding dress around this time last year, she told me she’d recently quit her job to pursue sewing full-time. She recalled her resignation letter by heart. The first sentence of it has stayed with me: “The time has come for me to focus on what gives me joy.”
I sat with that for a while. Not just the boldness of it, but the clarity. Knowing when a season is over. Knowing what it’s asking you to move toward.
The second quote was from Ms. Julia Pierce. Within five minutes of meeting me, she asked how old I was, then said, “You still a baby!” I tried to counter it, but she doubled down: “You ain’t grown ’til you 40.”
That freed something up in the room. Two women in their 20s came up to me afterwards and said they felt like they could breathe again. Like maybe they weren’t behind after all.
I felt that shit too.
Because lately, I’ve been noticing how much pressure we put on time: how fast we think things should happen, how early we think we should have it all figured out, how quickly we think we’re supposed to become who we’re becoming.
But Spirit keeps telling me something different.
I was listening to Oprah interview Anthony Ray Hinton while working on a puzzle. He spent almost 30 years on death row for a crime he didn’t commit. When he got out, he didn’t get an apology or compensation. He didn’t speak about catching up. He just moved forward.
One of my penpals writes me maybe once a year. She always apologizes. I always tell her not to. Today, her letter arrived. It included a Nina Simone quote about time, a card about trusting the timing of your journey, and a watercolor she made that read: “Time to leap forward.”
Then there was Carol Bayer Sager, 82 years old, saying in an interview, “You’ll be there when you get there.” So simple, but so true.
Even the birds in my backyard got something to say about it. I bought a bird bath with a fountain and watched it all weekend like it was supposed to perform on command. Nothing. I moved it three times. Still nothing. Then I looked it up and turns out birds take their time. They see it. They just gotta make sure it’s safe. Sure enough, today, one dropped in when I wasn’t even studdin’ it.
I keep thinking about Pilate in Song of Solomon. She ain’t even own a clock. And I’m starting to understand why.
Because if I’m not careful, my obsession with time will rob me of the life I’m living and building. I barely remember my teens, my 20s, even parts of my 30s. It all blurred together. Except for the moments that slowed me down. Grief is real good at that. Forces you to sit still. A woman I once worked with said you either slow down by choice or by force.
I think I’m learning…slowly…to choose it. To trust that I’m not late. That I’m not behind. That what’s meant for me will meet me when I’m ready to meet it. I’m learning to ignore the clock—even when I’m trembling in a plank position with a timer right beside me. Ignore the tick tock and take my time.
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