One of my favorite stories my dad told, he who could not read or write and was filled with hundreds of old tales: [icopyright one button toolbar]
Once upon a time, an old watchmaker, the wise man of the village, drew a line in the dirt outside his cottage, and asked the children all around to make that line in the dirt shorter
— but without erasing any part of it or covering over any part of the line.
All the little ones stood around thinking and thinking. Their eyebrows went up and their eyebrows went down. But to no avail. It was no use. How could one make a line shorter without touching it? No one could understand how.
Then came the wise old man’s wife, whose only job in the village was to hang the moon each night… and she had overheard the entire conversation about the line in the dirt and the task put before the children. ‘Oh, that’s easy’ she said. Anyone can make that line shorter…. and she bent over, picked up a sharp twig and drew a longer line atop the shorter one.
See? she said, her eyes twinkling… to make one thing less, compare it to something far bigger…. and thus you may increase your happiness in life.
CODA
In my father’s world of his Old Country, the two elderly people in the story represent Father and Mother Time. Somewhere in translations of Mother Goose and the ancient holiday celebrations of the turn of the year [New Year’s] Father Time appears to briefly show up in modern times, but Mother Time does not. She has been erased in many a version of the old stories… and yet it is she who keeps the pace of the days, the turn of the seasons from Ceres to Demeter and more. The point being Father Time counts Time, Mother Time tells how to live in the mysteries of Time, for gain, for contentment. ‘For everything there is a season…