Coincidentally, Beata and I found out a few weeks ago that both of us wanted to write our next blogs about time. In her blog Beata talks about the ways in which the passing of time seems to change according to the phase of her journey. While sailing it passes quickly - incredibly so when bad weather brings genuine risk. While island-hopping, it drags.
There is, of course, a research literature on the way in which people perceive the passing of time. This article sums it up nicely in the highlights, when it notes that judgements of the passage of time vary with the allocation of attention, and arousal.
I have been considering instead something more fundamental about time; it still passes. This is something I have been reflecting on for three reasons over the last month or so. The first reason has to do with one of my favourite landmarks on Heath Ride (the road I have decided to explore for the next year). The picture below shows this. I don't know enough about trees to be sure how long it has taken to grow around this sign, but I love the way in which this image both shows the passing of time (through the steady envelopment of the sign by the tree), and shows a moment in time (the sign itself being somehow 'of an era' to my eye). I might try to find out more about this by speaking with some of the people who live nearby.
The second reason I have been reflecting on the passing of time reently is more personal. On the 26th April, we lost our 22 year old cat, Issy. She had a wonderful life and was in good health for pretty much all of it. She did have kidney failure, but that was being managed well, and it was only in the last couple of weeks of her life that she began experiencing problems with her day-to-day living; walking was becoming increasingly difficult for her as her muscles weakened and she was beginning to look just a little more tired all the time. Our vet was amazing, and came to our home to support us in our decision to be kind to Issy, allowing her to pass away peacefully before any of it became unbearable.
The picture on the left shows Issy when Kim had recently adopted her, a few months old. In the middle, she is about 11. And on the right, she is enjoying the sun on her final day. She was Kim's best friend for all of her own life, and around half of Kim‘s. It breaks my heart looking at the last picture, wishing she was still here, but knowing it is best that she left us when she did, free from the burden of any really low quality time.
The time that passed over Issy's lifetime was instead all filled with play, sleep, and unconditional love. I like to think of it as a very high quality life. Filling our time with high quality activities strikes me as one of the things we should all strive to do. Things like learning, and forging meaningful friendships, and maybe sailing around the world.
The third reason I have been thinking about time is the art of David Hockney. Kim and I went to an exhibition of his work at a venue called ‘Lightroom’ in London, and were both struck by one of the key points made - that when one brings ‘time’ into art, the role of perspective changes. One of his most famous pieces - a photo collage of a chair - illustrates this point. As he moves around the chair, the standard ‘linear perspective’ we are used to seeing in photos and paintings disappears; his experience - captured in the collage - is from multiple perspectives.
As time passes now, more and more I am noticing the changes in perspective that come with it, whether one is sailing around the world or just living day to day in the passing English seasons. There will be some more pictures with the sun in soon.
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