Once upon a Time

Once upon a Time things were ticking-along quite nicely. But somewhere along the twists and turns of life, me and Father Time, its safe to say, fell out with each other. Its only recently that I’ve come to realize that this actually happened. Subtle, slow and in the background ‘negative space’ of living - Me and Father Time just haven’t been getting on at all.

As Dr Seuss would say “Not one bit”.

And, as I’ve also been struggling thinking about what to write as my next entry here in Clair-in-the-Community for a while; I thought it’s about time (I know, pardon the pun!) that the Twain shall Meet.

So today’s blog is a sort of ”conscious uncoupling”* (thank you Gwyneth Paltrow), of what’s in my head, in order to not only make some sort of sense of this feud between me and Father Time, but also to tease out what makes him such a tricky customer. Ironically - I started this blog over two weeks ago and it has slowly morphed overtime; as my ideas, understandings (and insecurities) have changed.

I’m thinking of the first snippet as a rather self indulgent retrospective on things that have happened to cause me and good old Father Time to not be getting on so well. To this I add a pinch of sanctimonious hindsight [oh yes, I love a bit of that every now and then!] It wouldn’t be a ‘happily ever after’ ending, for my 'once upon a time’ header without a dash of prospective, ’romcom' optimism to finish the post off. I essentially seek to better understand Father Time (and all of her/his guises) so a sorts of conscious re-coupling (thanks again Gwyneth) of my relationship with it is somewhat renewed & refreshed and I guess, from my perspective, less feared and more respected.

The Mad Hatter knew all about respecting time:
The Mad Hatter: “I dare say you never even spoke to Time!”
“Perhaps not," Alice cautiously replied; "but I know I have to beat time when I listen to music.”
“Ah! That accounts for it,” said the Hatter.
“He won’t stand a beating.
Now, if only you kept on good terms with him, he’d do almost anything you like with the clock.”
Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
On Twitter recently, I came across a photo-quote that got me pondering and kinda started to bring this post on Time together….

I tweeted back:
If the world’s currency was time; it would have a very different economic/ political and ethical landscape
And I think that there in lies the problem with good old Father Time. Time is probably the most precious entity that we ‘possess’ as humans’. Yet, it can be the forgotten one; the abused one; neglected, taken-for-granted, hidden, regretted, or the wished-away one. Time can be a sinister trickster, something that he revealed me earlier on today. In the flick of a switch Father Time turned my word upside down and made it never-the-same-again; a happiness lost and an unwanted silence found.

My fallout with Mr Time has been a slow burner; I can’t recall when it started. But I can now look back, with a renewed sense of insight and reflexivity, and with the privilege of more thinking time on my hands:

As Lewis Carroll wrote about Alice: Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next.

Cultural time: Perhaps it emanated from the contrasts and clashes of my culturally manifested constructions of Welsh time [Mrs Amser] with my hubby’s Peruvian/Latino time [Senior Tiempo]. Mrs Amser is about planning ones time, an intolerance for lateness and a disdain for not filling time with outdoorsy mountain related things and activities. Senior Tiempo is much more laid back; the expression “mañana mañana” used regularly by South American’s [essentially means ‘I’ll do it tomorrow/ it can wait until tomorrow] really does sum up the cultural values. Senior Tiempo isn’t about planning; its about living in the moment, a drunken sort of hedonism, where lateness doesn’t exist, and the siesta is seen as an important way to spend ones time . There is no such thing as doing nothing. In this sense Mrs Amser and Senior Tiempo tested each other.

Shared Time: Perhaps it’s when time no longer becomes something you own; moreover something you desperately try to cling onto and hoard; whilst others take ownership and their share of your time. My time is now owned and controlled by my two Tiny Time Lords; my lovely daughters (aged 4 years and 1 year) A time of selflessness and giving-through-sheer-love. But a very exhausting and demanding one. Any time that’s left is then fought out between hubby, students, work - leaving me with the scraps.

Dark time: Perhaps its when the dark companion came a-calling. A period of depression where, in the words of Eddie Vedder, my ‘pictures… [were].. washed in black, tattooed everything’. This was a mostly dark numb time that was characterised by an almost ignorance of time, veiled in sadness. Sometimes the sadness pays me a little visit - like today.

So I don’t know when the fallout happened, its all a bit fuzzy, but what I do know is that the last six months it kinda all came together into a crescendo, the climax of the battle. Probably heavily influenced because of my return to my full-time demanding University Lecture post, but compounded by everything else, and a little more; I had no time. Others wanted my time; my students, my children, my family. I wanted others’ time - but wasn’t getting any. I was also trying to keep up with time; continuously rushing around trying, but often failing, to be on-time.Time also seemed to be slipping through my fingers, days wasted, wrinkles forming - and the fight of time and aging on my skin, and precious moments just passed me by unacknowledged. A frustrating time to say the least.

Why is Father Time so tricky? Often referred to as The Fourth Dimension, what makes Time such a tricky one? Ontologically speaking does time truly exist, is it a thing? Epistemologically speaking how do we know that it does exist? Axiologically speaking does time have a value, for example, we talk about ‘spending time’, 'good time’, 'waste of time’? These are some of the complexities and contradictions of time, these and many more.

Time is a real ‘thing’; objective and only one Truth. The Newtonian view of time believes that time does exist; time is a fundamental structure of the universe, along with space- and its independent of events [this is called realist view]. Developing this view, we could also say that time is objective. It is a quantitative measure of the past, present and future. 1 hour is always 60 minutes. It exists whether we are around to experience it or not.

Time is only real to the beholder; subjective and multiple truths. However, there is the view that time is neither an event nor a thing, but a fundamental intellectual structure used by humans to compare events. From this perspective space and time “do not exist in and of themselves, but … are the product of the way we represent things”, because we can know objects only as they appear to us”. We could also say that time is only experienced through people, and we will never know if time exists without us, because we are us!

If this is the case, and time is something constructed in our heads then people can experience time differently. Time can seem to go fast/ slow or even to feel like it has stopped, and this experience of time is just as relevant as the metrics developed by the 18th century scientists at Greenwich meantime.

The Dichotomies of Time From this subjective perceptual viewpoint, there are a number of contradictions/ dichotomies concerning time:

Time is valuable but also is free
Time can be abundant, or scarce
Time can be given; but it can also be taken away
Time can be good, time can be bad
Time can be emotional or numb
Time can be slow or fast
Time can be spent or wasted; lost or found.
For me, it is when these dichotomies of time collide that tensions rise and feuds form. Fighting working fast with nurturing slow as this beautiful poem by Night presents so beautifully; ‘slow down mummy, there is no need to rush’ she urges.

Yet, the contrast to this is that as a working mother, I work long hours in a demanding job; PhD students want their assignment feedback yesterday, undergraduates need teaching today and courses need validating tomorrow. And even though a wonderfully insightful friend of mine, Lottie, reminds me often that “Academia is not an emergency service” - sometimes many of us who are involved with it; be us staff, students, administrators. forget and get carried along in a frantic whirlwind of teaching/ marking/ feedback and so on.

Mindful Time
An anonymous mother/ academic elaborates on a university webpage about the trials and tribulations of accommodating Time’s dichotomies;

"It is tough. I spend a lot of late nights reading and writing and a lot of bleary eyed mornings afterwards playing with the kiddos in the park. I have found a few things to be crucial: - get or keep your sense of humor, you won’t survive without it - learn to be in the moment, if you spend the time you are writing worrying about your child’s cough, nobody wins. And, by contrast, if you spend the day your child first starts to walk wondering if you’ll get tenure, you’ve cheated yourself and him/her. - plan ahead as much as you can, but cultivate a sense of flexibility- for every person who rolls their eyes after you miss a deadline because you were busy holding a child who was feverish and inconsolable, there will be two who have been there and give you a pat on the shoulder and the understanding look that gets you through today.” http://parents.berkeley.edu/advice/allkinds/compatible.html
The notion of being in the moment and cheating yourself that the anonymous mother writes about above; being present in one place but being in-mind in another - this is essentially ‘mindfulness’ and I think one of the increasingly insightful and essential tools in helping us negotiate some of the dichotomies of time that I’ve discussed above, most especially in the stressful, pressurized and social-media-sodden world we live in.

At best mindfulness is a simple stress management technique that we can all freely use once we are aware of it; its simple, easy to understand but very powerful. We can use to refocus, reassure and realign ourselves with when Father Time is beating us up. At its worst Mindfulness has now become a buzz word among consultancies offering to 'sell you’ their mindfulness techniques for rather large fees and lots of unnecessary ribbons and bows.

Put simply;
Mindfulness is “the intentional, accepting and non-judgemental focus of one’s attention on the emotions, thoughts and sensations occurring in the present moment”, which is derived from Buddhist “anapanasati”.
Mindfulness is about reminding yourself to bring your current thoughts back into the present - the here and now. You might be fretting over things past, or worried about things planned. Its about constantly noticing when you have gone down a vexing road, and to 'check’ yourself back into the here and now. Its observation without criticism; being compassionate with yourself. When unhappiness or stress hover overhead, rather than taking it all personally, you learn to treat them as if they were black clouds in the sky, and to observe them with friendly curiosity as they drift past. In essence, mindfulness allows you to catch your negative thought patterns before they tip you into a downward spiral. It begins the process of putting you back in control of your life.

It’s important to immerse ourselves 100% into what we are doing in the here-and-now and in a non-judgmental way so that we can be as effective, as kind and as forgiving to ourselves as possible; and so that we can be the best we can be in truth to ourselves. Recent research is showing how mindfulness can cognitively change our perceptions and relationship with time. Even if its just an awareness of its existence.. without all the commercial stuff.. keeping ourselves checked that we are in the 'present’, 'here and now’ is a good healthy thing to do.

Thankfully, like most constructive feuds, my fallout with Time, I think, is now coming to an end of sorts; a lesson that has provided me with new sense of clarity; of thought, presence of mind and appreciation of the Time I have had, do have and will have.

I still struggle with somethings; that time cannot be turned back, no matter how much you want it to. Time cannot be undone. You cannot change what has been said, what has been done, or even make someone want to share their time with you. It is with this that I live in hope, that Father Time can in the flick of a switch can make my world complete again; because as quickly as Time takes something away, in the turn-of-a-corner or blink-of-an-eye an unwanted quiet can be filled again - and then Once Upon a Time has her Happily Ever After.

But Time being Time; only Time will Tell.