My book about time is late at the library. The book is called Timefulness and it’s about the lifecycle of our planet. The beginning. The snowball. The Boring Billion. The grand entrance of the Himalayas, when India escaped Africa and smashed into Asia, creating enough fresh carbon-eating rock to precipitate the Ice Age. The way evolution and plate tectonics moved at the same speed: slowly, neighborly, allowing life to flourish. It struck a certain chord in me to learn the why of plate tectonics: the way, underneath the soil, with enough time, rocks act like liquids, falling to the molten core, then rising, heated, to escape.
The book is now two weeks overdue. But the library has banished overdue fees, so what does that mean? It means I feel guilty knowing that someone else is waiting to read this book, while I continue to hang onto it, reading it when I can. The policy is, after 60 days being late, the book is considered “lost” and charged a replacement fee. For all practical purposes, it means the due date is 60 days later than what’s listed in the angry emails.
I’m reading it as fast as I can. The problem is, I can’t read it at home. I’m reading four different books at four different times and places. There’s the audiobook I listen to while I run through Rock Creek Park. The kindle book I read in bed while I’m falling asleep. The huge heavy epic I read on the couch when I have spare evenings. And then there’s Timefulness, which I only read out and about, when I’m not “killing time” but finding it, like discovering a hidden pocket in a dress fold. I bring it with me on errands in case I feel like taking a break. I bring it to the university campus downtown, where I go every week for my writing workshop, and sit in the student center an hour before class begins. This is where I read about time. And by time, I mean, life.
I found myself at this selfsame student center this past Thursday, March 9, the ten-year anniversary of my college boyfriend’s death. This was not a workshop night. I was there to remember. I wanted to be surrounded by college kids to remember what that was like. It scares me how many memories of him have disappeared. Most of the ones I retain are tied to the photographs I’ve pored over again and again. But what about all those hours in libraries, sneaking snacks into the stacks as we tried not to worry about the future? What about all walks through campus, because there must have been walks—where were we going and why? I remember one walk, during a fight. I remember another walk, late at night. What about the time in Ithaca summer when he showed up at my door for a surprise weekend, and all the other unphotographed, unwritten moments; how long is their halflife, and how many halflives have lived themselves out?
At the student center, I found myself watching kids study for their classes, so absorbed in their homework they wouldn’t notice as others walked by or as the nearby TV switched to a news story about a car accident. And why should they? Their worlds were in their hands. I, too, escaped into my own world to browse old photos and emails, a ritual on this day. And when I looked up again, the rest of the world was still there, at a distance.
After some time, I walked to the National Mall, because there are plenty of memorials that make for good remembering. The reflecting pool was empty, with nothing to reflect upon; the water was all drained. I walked on the grate to be in the middle of it all and thought: how special it is to be here today. I took a photo of the empty, eerie pool. Then I realized I had taken this exact same photo one year ago. I’d forgotten.
I walked to the Lincoln Memorial to watch the sun set over the river. It was cold, but in a soft way: not so cold as to make your skin chapped and dry, just cold enough to make it feel like smooth metal. And above the cold sun there were strange black etchings in the sky, like runes, like someone, somewhere, sending a message… I hoped they were clouds, but was disappointed to see them move too methodically to be natural. I’d never seen black contrails and still don’t understand how it works. Supposedly black contrails are the shadows of white contrails, but there were no yins to their yang. Just straight black lines, veering towards one another, as if they would crash, but they just passed through.
I don’t know how much time I spent scrutinizing the horizon, but when I looked back around, the rest of the sky was dark. And again I felt this distance from my surroundings. I had just felt so close to the sky, like it was the ceiling of my mind. Now everything else felt far away.
Ten years is a lot of time. It is also no time at all. It was barely yesterday when scientists discovered the true age of the earth. Suddenly it went from five thousand to 4.5 billion years old. Our lives are moving faster every day, and the only thing to fear is how much faster it will go.
At a large enough scale, distance is measured in time. At a small enough scale, the opposite feels true. Time passes as you walk from one end of the park to another. It stops as you lose yourself into your phone or the sky.
And now it’s time for this newsletter to end. Not forever; just for now. Because I don’t have a good ending to this little story. Because there is no ending. Because time hasn’t stopped. Because time will never end. The world is made of time.
-Denise
PS: You may have noticed this newsletter is “late.” (You may not have noticed). I’m finding myself not running out of time, but reallocating my time to new, exciting priorities. Essays and workshops and things like that. So this newsletter, unfortunately, will cease being “biweekly” and instead be sent… whenever it makes sense. Whenever I have something worth saying enough to pause my other projects.
PPS: One year ago, we adopted two kittens. Today, they are full-grown cats, and terrified of our new foster kittens. We picked up our kittens seven days ago; one of them has already been adopted. He barely had time to blink. Here are the little nubbins (and our big boys).
<3 I look forward to the next newsletter, whenever that may be..