Time does not heal all. The old adage is a fallacy. Sitting around and waiting for healing to come is like sitting and waiting for the tooth fairy. Work heals. Process heals. The desire, intention AND decision to heal, heals. Time alone does not heal. -Debora Granja

I picked up a clock on the side of the road the other day. It was lying in the street next to the curb, box unopened, addressed to someone who clearly did not live at this particular residence I was parked in front of in San Francisco on this particularly fateful day. The customer service rep at Restoration Hardware was nice enough, and between my severe stuttering, sluggishly gaited speech and missing packing slip, we decided I would take the boxed clock with me. A UPS driver was scheduled to bring me a return address label and deliver the package to it’s rightful owner.

There was only one challenge to overcome in my endeavor to save the world one lost parcel at a time: the oversized timepiece was the size of the top of my Easter egg blue Mini Cooper. When my then boyfriend returned from his errand, we set upon securing the carton to “Betty” (as she is lovingly referred to). As fate would have it, the sports/luggage rack that sporadically sat on top of Betty was not installed on that day. This would NOT prevent me from completing my good deed, damn it! We carefully placed the box on top of Betty, spread the spider web cargo net I kept in Betty over the box, and secured the net to whatever parts of the side, top, etc that were clip-able.

Much happened that fateful day and night that I carried time on the top of Betty. The story ends with me literally losing time somewhere after the 80/580/880 interchange. The UPS driver was sent away sans package the next day. The pulled up parts of Betty were eventually pushed back into the track from which it came. Exactly 15 days later I would find out my then boyfriend made love to our mutual friend on his boat, breaking agreements and my already fragile trust and belief in love.

Despite my best efforts in trying to return time to it’s rightful owner, time did not heal. Time did not heal. But I will.

Time, time, time…

Gina Intinarelli on Geary Blvd in San Francisco, I hope your clock found it’s way to you.