What Time Is It?

It is late, and like many nights before, I am sitting here at my kitchen table. Only tonight I am not proofing manuscripts, making hearts, or paying bills: I am simply sitting here thinking about “time” — the fragility of time, the essence of it, the breadth and scope of it, the seeming shortness of it, the audacity of it, the hope and despair of it, the tragedy and texture of it, and, of course, time’s laughter, its happiness, and the pure magic of it.