John Pepin, Michigan Department of Natural Resources

“Back and forth, lies unfurl in the eyes, in the eyes, in the eyes of the world,” — Lindsey Buckingham

The calendar has slipped under my feet again like a carpet runner on a polished wood floor and out behind me, leaving my shoes up in the air as I sense I am about to take it on the chin.

I didn’t even have any time to get my hands out in front of me to break my fall.

Where have the last two months gone? I saw them up ahead in the distance. I blinked once and they had flashed their reflection in my rearview mirror.

It was so quick. I imagine the days blowing off a calendar one by one, like they do in the movies. It didn’t seem beyond more than a handful of days, not already now more than two full months gone by.

Auld Lang Syne, Senor Groundhog and St. Valentine, we’re blowing in like a lion with our eyes dead set on the Fourth of July. I am afraid to blink again.

The time is flying by so fast now it has really ceased to be funny or a casual and familiar curiosity. It’s starting to get a little scary.

I am suffering under no illusion that I can slow this train down long enough to wave to the crossing guard. It’s like being on one of those bullet trains of Japan or Germany.

I am constantly wondering how this time thing works.

Do we just start spinning faster and faster the older we get until we fly off the surface of the earth one day, once and for all?

Or does the centrifugal force of all that accelerated spinning drive us into the earth?

I view either of these proposed eventualities with the raised-eyebrow skepticism they deserve, but I do truly wonder what this is all about.

A third scenario might be that we become so dizzy from all the spinning we pass out and never recover from our condition.

How long can we go on moving this fast?

I don’t know the answer to that question, but it seems like it can’t last for a very long time. I think our human parts wear out too fast for that kind of rough-and-tumble treatment.

Maybe those of us in this condition should get a set of those motion sickness bracelets to keep us from getting dizzy, thereby disrupting this scenario from playing itself out.

I don’t really want to be known as someone who continuously looks backwards instead of forward, but the road ahead is obscured with shadows, flashing light from the passing days and a whirling wind that groans and howls.

Looking behind me the past is known, but still uncertain. There were so many things there that still don’t make sense to me now.

Why do some of us lose and some of us win? Is it predetermined or is everything we do – conscious or otherwise – produced in random fashion? There are critics and supporters for both views.

Why do some of those past days seem clearer and more real than those that are around me now? Why do other times in my life seem like they never happened at all?

I sometimes wonder if I ever saw a true wonder in front of me now, like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster, would I even be moved by it? I might just look at the creature and say, “It’s about time you showed up.”

I wonder whether goals and aspirations I have for myself are simply being contemplated too late in life, given this hyper-speed passing of days, weeks, months and years. Perhaps. Perhaps not.

It’s a strange contemplation.

I’ve heard of some people living to old age accomplishing much beyond what they were best known for. These would be people like 98-year-old former President Jimmy Carter.

There have been others I’ve heard of who have lived well into old age doing not much of anything at all their entire lives. Meanwhile, there are young children who pass away without ever even getting the chance to learn what any of this discussion is even about.

For me, it’s all weird to think about.

It’s a vanishing act to be sure, but the sleight of hand is well-hidden. My guess is most of us will still be guessing how it’s being done as it’s happening. That is if we’re fortunate enough to remain conscious enough to contemplate our final act.

I think I am inching along, out of step with the calendar and the seasons, presuming there will be some unknown amount of time remaining to accomplish some of the things I have on my list.

At the same time, I am also sadly beginning to resign myself to the fact that there will be things that I once took for granted as things I would achieve – or places I would go and be – that will never happen.

Time has wiped an eraser back and forth across some of those things I had written on the blackboard back there in that old elementary school, when it seemed unbelievable to think that the days would ever end.

Old-timey days of learning proper penmanship, the names of capitals and states, even painters, writers and inventors. I bet I could still make a decent hand-traced turkey.

I think I need to start with my places that I still want to visit. This makes good sense because it will take longer to get to some of those places than other things I want to do or see on my list that are closer to home.

Most of my destinations involve traveling to historical or natural places, driving old roads across the countryside of scenes I’ve never visited, or finding out what the birds, the rivers and the skies have to say in other parts of this beautiful world.

I once had a dream of seeing all the national parks and all the states. Will I still be able to make that dream a reality? It’s possible.

I seem to be the kind who likes to explore as much as I can in a given area before moving on to something bigger, farther away or more extravagant in some way. Given this, I’ll likely not see Paris, France before I see Paris, Texas (the place, not the movie).

I have determined one thing about this time trap I’ve been talking about. That is that the more you try to do, the faster the time goes.

It sounds like a safe and obvious assumption, but it’s also a cruel knife that cuts both ways at once.

Another strange occurrence in getting older is the paradox of looking older, feeling older, but remaining young at heart.

I know there are things I once did decades ago that I don’t even doubt for a minute that I couldn’t still do – until I try. At that point, I start feeling older pretty darn fast.

I usually then spend a while wondering how the heck that could have happened up on me all at once.

Maybe it’s because we start out as kids not walking at all. Then we move on to bigger and better things like tricycles, skateboards, cars, snowmobiles, boats and airplanes. All these things help us cut down the distances and speed up the time.

With a constant focus on going faster and farther, perhaps it makes it easy for something like age to creep up on us slowly without us even getting a whiff of the situation until it has arrived.

People sometimes ask me how much longer before I plan to retire. It’s a question I’ve gotten more often over the past couple of years.

My first response is typically to be caught off guard by the question, as in “they can’t be talking to me?” Then, when I realize that they are, I truthfully tell them that I can’t imagine retiring.

My wife would say I have way too many interests to retire. She’s right.

But then again, I think the past 20 years has simply evaporated, and it would not be surprising if the next two decades did the same thing.

That would make me as old as my dad was when he checked out without a wake-up call. So, all this time compacting in on me with the list of things I want to do constantly widening is maddening.

Every rumination I have on these subjects, and there have been too many to count, ends up with me not having enough time to do all the things I want to do.

Understanding that this will undoubtedly be how things wind up doesn’t make it any easier to accept. I struggle greatly with that idea. I don’t want to cede that territory.

The whole scenario makes me angry sometimes, until I remind myself how foolish that is. I am fortunate to have ever had the opportunity to have even one day, or part of a day, to experience the wilds and wonders of this life.

So, I will plan some more outings, keep reading, writing, doing and rambling, cramming as much in as I can before it’s my own turn to check out – ready for the next adventure.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan’s world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula.