Time moves in the most mysterious of ways.

We're reminded of its peculiar pace and unbound form through the eternally present growth that is aging and learning life's lessons while we often feel to be nothing more than a fragment from a recently wished-upon dandelion as we float on the warm whisper of a summer breeze; carrying with us wishes and desires that once put out into the world, bare the manifestations and dreams of a reality not yet realized.

I have memories of folding the stems of dandelions onto one another until I had made a crown as well as a green and yellow-stained mess of my already paint-covered hands.

The hands of a six-year-old have always struck me as one of those sacred delicacies in life. Holding the aluminum heat-sealed edges of a fruit punch Capri Sun, the hands of a six-year-old can seem to operate by a completely separate switchboard than the one their racing minds take orders from.

"Don't touch this" or "that's hot" are two statements that trigger the firing of the former switchboard and cause the little, delicate hands of a six-year-old to function with full autonomy from the rest of their well-disciplined, developing mind.

I think as we age, we bridge this lacuna between the two; between our thoughts and our actions. Some build this bridge more quickly than others but what does it mean to be "quick" anyways? Perhaps that's just another deception that is a byproduct of the peculiar ticking of time.

Isn't it mystifying to have two memories, years apart, that both feel as tangible and accessible as if they occurred yesterday and within a few hours of one another, no less?

We share this unfillable desire to control the speed of time like we control the immediate acceleration and head spinning halts of a remote control race car. We yearn for the omniscient sovereignty to control an entity or a concept that we as humans created.

However, I imagine if you have children (and even if you don't), you can understand the disconnect between creating something and being able to control that something.

I have this image in my mind of my younger brother as an unruly three-year-old on an ancient family artifact that is a VHS-recorded home video. On this video, he is aimlessly running around and veering through a children's gymnastics center while parents and grandparents alike are falling over themselves trying to prevent him from running into someone, something, or even just himself. The chase continues today but now in a metaphorical sense and rather than taking place within the padded and cushioned confines of a gym, I find myself running with him on cracked sidewalks and pacified pavement; trying to remember how it all changed and moved so quickly.

I think that we oftentimes chase our creation to what feels like no-end until we make a misstep off of the blue mat and find ourselves overwhelmingly incumbered by the germ-infested foam blocks beneath the hanging gymnastic rings that fill the pit we now find ourselves in.

From this view, we are humbled. Humbled to see the world from a lower vantage-point; both mentally and physically as we try to jumbo-step our way out of the blocks while realizing that despite the fact that our memories of being an energized tyke are not far removed, our ability to be small and agile and three-years-old again, are.

But that's just another one of those unwelcomed reminders of time, isn't it?

Our aging bodies, our limiting physique, our hands that are now worn and seem completely void of the memories from what it was like to hold a juice pouch in one hand and your favorite stuffed animal in the other; all the while tarnishing your beloved bunny with the cheesy dust that remains on your fingers from the pack of flavor blasted goldfish your mom finally bought after you begged her in the "snacks, chips, crackers" aisle of the grocery store.

The aging, the reckoning, the bargaining, the memories -- are all reminders of the peculiarity of time.

So yes, time moves in mysterious ways, but as long as you're moving with it and not chasing it like the unruly, uncatchable, three-year-old it sometimes is, you too can move in the same kind of way.