What time?

My book about time is late at the library. The book is called Timefulness and it’s about the lifecycle of our planet. The beginning. The snowball. The Boring Billion. The grand entrance of the Himalayas, when India escaped Africa and smashed into Asia, creating enough fresh carbon-eating rock to precipitate the Ice Age. The way evolution and plate tectonics moved at the same speed: slowly, neighborly, allowing life to flourish. It struck a certain chord in me to learn the why of plate tectonics: the way, underneath the soil, with enough time, rocks act like liquids, falling to the molten core, then rising, heated, to escape.

The book is now two weeks overdue. But the library has banished overdue fees, so what does that mean? It means I feel guilty knowing that someone else is waiting to read this book, while I continue to hang onto it, reading it when I can. The policy is, after 60 days being late, the book is considered “lost” and charged a replacement fee. For all practical purposes, it means the due date is 60 days later than what’s listed in the angry emails.

I’m reading it as fast as I can. The problem is, I can’t read it at home. I’m reading four different books at four different times and places. There’s the audiobook I listen to while I run through Rock Creek Park. The kindle book I read in bed while I’m falling asleep. The huge heavy epic I read on the couch when I have spare evenings. And…