"So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads..."

“…The ancient Greeks had two words for time, chronos and kairos. While the former refers to chronological or sequential time, the latter signifies a time in between, a moment of undetermined period of time in which something special happens. What the special something is depends on who is using the word. While chronos is quantitative, kairos has a qualitative nature. In this case used as rare or significant fact or event….”


Anyone who studied speech because you're a dick, and thought it was easy in college is aware of this phenomenon. Those of you who didn’t (and that’s probably like 99.9% of you) are probably like, wtf does this have to do with anything? Well, I will tell you. This weekend was filled with MANY moments of kairos time, which was a nice change for my usually very “chronos” type life.


Most recent explanation of this – I was on my way to work this morning (driving down Gregory on the twisty, windy road that eventually leads you through “ohmigod, lock all your doors” to “oh, business district…”) when I suddenly had this intense feeling like I need to stop drinking on Sundays was missing something. I look over to my right and make a mental list of everything sitting there. Purse? Check. Wallet? Check. Phone? OHMIGOD, Where is my….oh. Wait. In my lap. Got it. Did I pay my bills? Kidding. I definitely wouldn’t panic that much over forgotten bills. Sad, but true. (haha) Tapping my fingers on the steering wheel, I can feel my heartbeat steadily increasing. I suddenly feel rushed, irritable, and uneasy. I look up into the review mirror to make sure I haven’t like totally forgotten to put makeup on or something (not trying to scare people) and THEN….right then -- the sun came beaming down through the trees – creating this kind of peaceful, angelic light you couldn’t re-create if you tried. It was breathtaking. I drive this same road every day and no matter how sunny it is, I’ve never seen anything like this. It was directly between the trees shinning like it was some kind of sign from God. In that moment, I felt my world just PAUSE, and I totally forgot what the hell my point was about everything else. I continued merrily on my way to work, every couple of minutes glancing back in the rearview mirror to make sure I didn’t make this up and that it was still there. It was. This was a definite moment of Kairos time.


A more relatable example of this was Friday night. We had tickets to the Royals Game, box seats, Diamond Club access, the whole bit. Awesome. Til we get there….and it’s POURING rain. This isn’t just RAIN. This is a torrential downpour that lasts for like 3 straight hours. I am not wearing underware a white tank stop with a sheer white tee over it. PERRRRRRFECT. The two gentleman that were accompanying me did their best to keep me from getting wet, but our window of opportunity to run was definitely ruined by an even bigger/wetter/colder burst of rain. Of course. It’s one of those moments where you have 2 options: (Side note: For those of you who KNOW me, getting my hair/make-up destroyed is on my list of least favorite things) #1 Just go with it and realize I always you can bitch about not looking perfect or #2 you can just let it go and enjoy yourself. This was, was for sure a #2 moment. It was just…so funny. The rest of the night was equally as fun. I was definitely out of my element at times, but I couldn’t have been happier with the way the night turned out!!


And then, Saturday night; I was at this bar in Westport with a few of my closest friends (it was Miss Jaimie’s bday!) and we headed to watch Hopper play this original acoustic show (his first in 2 years!). I’d had kind of a stressful day. I had driven to Lawrence at 7am to watch the Coopster, who, is lucky i don't shake babies refused to take any nap longer than 30 minutes --while I was running out of steam on 1.5 hours of sleep. He was fussy (he’s teething) and I was SO. TIRED. I love my nephew more than liquor anything in this world, but he was a handful on Saturday. I had no idea how I was going to make it back to Eva’s house in time to leave by 7p, when I was leaving Lawrence at 5:45pm (road construction between there and here is AWFUL.) Let’s not also forget to mention that some people forget the world does not revolve around them, and no matter how many times you reiterate you have plans, it just doesn’t process. I had already turned down plans with 2 other AMAZING groups of friends for this evening and THAT was just adding fire to my fury. Frustration had, for sure, set in.


So we finally get there and the show is just INCREDIBLE. It started off a little shaky with an interesting miscommunication between us wanting food and our waitress…getting it…but, that was small in the course of events that followed. I remember sitting on the floor, listening to this AMAZING band (featuring Hopper’s good friend Kristy) and thinking how relaxed and at ease I was.


I was sitting in the floor (in a bar – gross right?) surrounded by people I adore and I remember closing my eyes and thinking how some moments can just feel so perfect. The leader singer has one of those raspy voices that made me develop the biggest girl crush just draws you in, and the rest of the band is so talented you can’t HELP but feel stopped in that moment and mesmerized by them. THEN, the band finishes and my moment of bliss turns into pure FUN. This DJ starts playing all this crazy techno and Jaimie, Eva, Terry, and the completely dorky part of myself that is convinced I'm a good booty dancer let loose and cut a rug (or 10) and had a blast. Not to mention there was this interesting character (male or so we were lead to believe) dressed in what appeared to be the smallest kilt ever humanly made. We’re pretty sure it was a “Catholic School Girl” uniform, but we let that one go…it was just hilarious! After that, we went to the O’Deeze and proceeded to celebrate Jaimie’s birthday until the bar closed. It was an epic night.


Yesterday? Just as fun. Eva, Lance, Leilani, and myself made a trip to Oceans of Fun and Worlds of Fun. I forgot, now matter how old you get, small things like that can really make a weekend amazing. Eva and I had a moment where we were sitting in the pool (I was leaned up against a fake palm tree with my head resting against the base) and we were just discussing life….feelings (gasp, right?), and everything that’s going on with us. The sun was shining directly on us. It was warm, the water was just right, and everything seemed right with the world. It was completely out of the ordinary for me to be in a pool, surrounded by children, and feel that peaceful. Pure Kairos.


Do me a favor – think of how much of your life is based on Cronos (linear) time and how much of it is based on Kairos time. Which moments do you really enjoy more? To some, it could qualify as being 9 months pregnant and going through the motions, day to day, waiting for the one moment of sheer bliss when your child is born and your realize your life is changed forever. For others, it’s something as simple as having someone grab your hand out of nowhere, in the most nonchalant way, letting you know there’s nowhere they’d rather be, than sitting there with you. There are varying degrees of this phenomenon, like with anything in life – but it’s not figuring out which are the most important by dissecting every detail, so much as recognizing them as they come, and learning to appreciate even the smallest of Kairos moments.. ~K