There is a clock on the wall of the cabin that reads 6:52 AM. The second hand rests just about an inch from the minute hand in absolute stillness. According to that clock it has been 6:52 AM since we arrived here two Thursdays past. I suppose I could put a battery in it if I was so inclined. We have a box of them in the refrigerator, but I don’t care. I like that clock just how it is.

My children don’t care either. Two nights ago I gave Peyton a kiss and told him good night. He looked at me and told me he couldn’t wait to get up in the morning. He loved waking up. He loves being alive. Maybe it’s because when he wakes up his choices are full of adventure. Things like exploring remote creek beds with intermittent pools of water and finding abandoned wild hog remains or picking wildflowers or wild blackberries with his family are what he looks forward to. He doesn’t think about what time it is, he only cares about life and living each moment to the fullest.

The other day I went with granddaddy to scout for Wild Blackberries, last year there was a drought and they are harder to find this year than in the past.  More than that, it had been almost nine years since I last picked wild blackberries with Chelsea and I couldn’t remember what the bush looked like. Chelsea and I have made a list of adventure that we want to experience with Trek and our family before we leave Texas and picking Wild Blackberries was on it. I left without telling anyone really. Chelsea knew where I went, but no one else. I was gone only for half an hour and I learned that the bush had a red stalk with tiny briars along it. The leaves are green and shaped with razors along their edge and the berries grow along a vine. When I returned Peyton sat outside with tears in his eyes because I had been gone. He didn’t know what time it was, he was crying because I had spent time away from him, time he would have rather spent with me. I scooped him up in my arms and told him that I should have asked him if he wanted to come, that I was sorry and I would never do it again. I meant it. He slowly nodded with and his bright blue eyes that shimmered as the sunlight bounced off his wet eyes.

To the passive observer it may seem like time has never mattered less in the Ingram family. Our only clock is broken and our cell phones often sit without charge lost in random places throughout the house. There is nowhere we have to be and nothing we have to do. There is no schedule, there are adventures that we want to have or people we would like to see. To me, time has never mattered more in the Ingram house only where as before we were slaves to it’s mastery over us now we are free to fill it with only that which is important to us.