#30 - Time's Essence Unveiled
Temporal Explorations into my opinions on Time, with just a dash of Thyme
To my dear readers,
It is the end of August. Somehow.
During my first summer in New York, I was 20 years old and obsessed with time. All summer, I would say, “One day I will be old but I’ll tell stories that start with when I was 20 living in New York City…”
My roommate liked to get a rise out of me by repeating Paul Janet's philosophy time. The theory is that time gets faster as we age because every year becomes a smaller fraction of our lives. The more time we have lived, the less time we feel like we have. Everything goes faster and faster. You find yourself saying, “I can’t believe it is the end of August already” more and more.
She explained this theory to me in our studio apartment. She sat cross-legged on her futon and I was laying on the blow-up mattress that was my bed for the summer. We didn’t have air conditioning and were half delirious from the heat. She was acting like she had a completed Ph.D. in time perception (she hadn’t. She was also 20). As she went on and on about Janet’s philosophy, I felt increasingly panicky. I felt time slipping away. I told her that this philosopher was wrong. And that the theory was stupid.
I was 20 and she was my roommate, so she ignored me. She told me that every day was going to go faster and faster for the rest of my life until there wasn’t any time left.
Her words, spoken with the confidence only a sophomore at a liberal arts college can muster, have haunted me for years.
I have always been afraid of time. Even before I was 20, I worried about time slipping away.1
I started keeping journals at 17, mostly in my planner as simplified documentation of events. I had developed anxiety about forgetting my life. The idea that I wouldn’t remember my high school routine sickened me. So I started to write it down.
I didn’t write my feelings. I assumed if I could remember what I was doing, then I would know what feelings were attached. The entries are comically dry.
“November 12, 2012 - no school. Went to see Skyfall with Mom in Fitchburg”
“January 10, 2013 - went to Target with Rachel. Got brownie mix.”
I kept this up for years. I would flip through these journals often. Memorizing the contents. Telling whoever was closest to me exactly what I had been doing the year before on that day.
After learning about Janet’s theory of time, I started to journal compulsively. I kept writing events but I also wrote down every feeling I had. I would write when I woke up in the mornings and during my lunch break. And add to my phone notes whenever I had a fleeting thought. Whenever I had a moment worth remembering, from that summer alone, I have a 46-page Google document titled, “documentation”, and most of the entries are still comically dry.
“June 24th, 2015 - Today Lucy said she saw Javier Bardem in line at Shake Shack. I don’t think so.”
“July 11th, 2015 - we ate tacos before bed”
It’s been nearly a decade since I got hooked and I have thirty journals on shelves in my bedroom. When people ask the question, “What would you save if there was a fire” I always say my journals. Well, first my cats. Second my journals. I even fantasize about how I would carry them out. I would toss them from the window to save them from the inferno, clutching the most precious to my chest as I saved them from the ash and smoke. I dream about getting a fireproof box one day when I have the money. So I can rest easy knowing all my memories are safe.
My journals have been coming up frequently. I think it might be because I know so many people turning thirty. Or about to turn 302? Everyone is thinking about time.
Most people respond in shock when they find out I have so much of my life documented on paper. At first, I responded in an equal amount of shock that they didn’t keep their journals. It makes me panicky to just imagine a world where I didn’t know exactly what I was doing two years ago from this date.
Then they want to know the logistics of it. When do I write? Do I write every day? What if you skip a day?
I tell them that I don’t have rules for it. I write in the mornings usually and it is okay if I skip a day. Enough of my life is now captured digitally through texts and photos so that I don’t worry as much about forgetting something. The only rule I have is that I have to finish one journal before I can start another. That way I don’t have half-finished journals floating in the ether.
I used to think that I would turn my journals into some sort of art project. Or that my obsession with time was actually what I was supposed to be making art about.
But making art about time is tricky. Writing about time is tricky too. It is too weird of a subject. Too much perception and abstraction for me.
It is best just to grow Thyme.
What’s for Dinner?
Pepperoni Pizza in Philadelphia on Michael’s parents’ back patio. It was an excellent late August evening with nice company. I do not know the pizza place but Philadelphia has good Italian food (remember, Rocky?)
As always, thanks for reading!
Claire
When I moved to New York as an adult at 23, I grew Thyme on our window sill. It was more Thyme than you could eat in a year, but I liked to joke that I needed it because I needed more Time.
also known as 29
Made me smile so the venipuncturist wondered what I had up my sleeve
A lovely Monday morning read for me.
A new week in which to celebrate time!