How do we keep each day from blending in with all the others? Why does it seem like time passes by so quickly?

It was beautiful out this morning. I drove my husband to his eye exam, and while I was waiting, I found a cafe nearby with outdoor seating in the shade. Perfect. Chai and pastries acquired, I set up my laptop at a tiny table on the patio.

I nibbled on a tomato, mozzarella, and basil bialy and eavesdropped on a pair of cyclists at the next table over.

“Is that your racing bike?”

“Yeah, I race with that.”

“Why’d you take your racing bike for a ride with me??”

That’s when I noticed that I was being watched. She was staring at me from surprisingly close by on the sidewalk. She moved between me and my cafe neighbors’ bikes. I wondered if she might take a seat at my table. 

For a split second, I worried that she might make a grab at my bag of pastries. Unlikely, of course, as she was hardly the size of a pastry herself.

I put the rest of the bialy back in the bag and took out the lemon poppy seed scone to nibble on next. “I see you,” I said to the curious sparrow, as a warning. Just in case she got any ideas. I folded the top of the bag of pastries a little more.

I’ve heard that seagulls have been known to take food right from people. Not just “hop up to the beach blanket and grab a cookie while you’re not looking.” Mr. or Ms. Steal-Your-Fries will saunter across the picnic table and pull that half a sandwich right out of your hand. 

Sheesh. I have never had this happen to me. I hope it remains the stuff of legend. 

But I can attest that seagulls are capable of grabbing something that size. While walking in Boston early one morning, I did a double-take when I saw a seagull fly past me with a huge bagel in its beak. A minute later, I spotted a forlorn bag of at least a dozen bagels, sitting by the sidewalk on Atlantic Ave, torn open. (The seagull may have been thinking “Best. Day. Ever,” but unfortunately bread is not good for birds. Also, clearly the bag of bagels didn’t make it to its destination, but why not? What happened here…)

House sparrows are much smaller than seagulls, though. Taking on humans directly would be daunting, and it’s a lot harder to fly off with something twice their size. So instead, they hop around by the cafe tables, hoping we’ll drop a crumb they can scavenge. 

A few minutes later I saw another house sparrow — a male, they look like they have a little beard — doing the same thing. There was a little flock of tiny winged cafe regulars, patrolling the grounds, keeping an eye on the humans in case we got careless with our baked goods.

Capturing little moments, like being spied on by a posse of sparrows on a cafe patio, or watching a seagull fly through Boston with a bagel, may be part of how we keep life from passing us by.

Earlier in my adult life, I believed that the sense of time going faster had to do with time being perceived as a portion of one’s life. When you’re only six years old, and maybe you only remember as far back as age four, any given summer is something like an eighth of your whole life. It’s huge! But as you get older, it’s a smaller percentage of your experience.

Now I’m not so sure that’s right. It may be more of a function of where we place our attention. If we’re doing the same things, day in and day out, no moments stand out in our memories. I was happy to take my husband to his appointment in part because it involved going somewhere different from my usual places. There was potential in it for a moment that would stand out.

And capturing those moments helps, too. We might capture them in words, as I do here; in drawings, as Nishant Jain does with Sneaky Art; in videos, like Cesar Kuriyama does in One second every day; or in other ways, maybe photos or music.

My husband and I started a habit of writing down when we make a memory, or when something makes us laugh. We note it on a slip of paper and put it in a jar. At the start of a new year, we can review the past year. I’m holding onto them, so we can review previous years too.

The book Storyworthy, by Matthew Dicks, recommends a practice he calls “homework for life.” At the end of each day, write down any stories you remember from your day, as well as any other stories that come to mind. Not the whole story, just a few words to help you remember it. “Early morning seagull with giant bagel,” perhaps.

He says that doing this has slowed down his life so that not everything goes by in a blur, with all the days blending together. I’d like to try this as a habit and see if it does the same for me.

And that’s my wish for you, and for me: may our lives not go by in a blur. That and not getting our food stolen by birds.

What helps time slow down for you?