Where does the idea come from that, if you got up earlier , you could
steal a march on the day ? In the matter of housework, yes. Put the washing in and wash the kitchen floor before breakfast – before, I would say, anything. In reading demanding technological documents (like legal papers) – yes: get up, get the morning beverage and read before anything else has a chance to impact the mind.
But time is, and it will be what it is, and its steady unrolling
– unimpacted by light or lack of it, or whatever else you allow to interfere -is often – though not always – consoling.
I can’t do it with writing. The idea of throwing myself at the fence in the hope that I will achieve better clearance doesn’t work. I write badly. There is a moment when I think I might begin and then – and then only … No guarantees but pushing it doesn’t work. I am at the mercy of time. Aren’t we all in varieties of ways ?
You know how people worry about age.
I read a piece this morning about skin care quoting nobody over 50. I want to write and say “Pooh-bah, sucks to you !” But it wouldn’t be published (no advertising value) and the stamps are expensive. I overheard a man on the bus the other day saying jokily “Don’t call me old – I am not old !” as if it was the worst thing. So I said “You can stop that .. I am old and it’s the last great freedom.” And beamed at him. “Never heard it called that before” he said. Think about it.
Alongside all the minor painful trying bits, the body very often rallies – like a sort of Last Hurrah before decrepitude. And even if the physical falls painfully away, the mind often reaches for something else and cherishes it, like a terminal cancer patient discovering birdwatching.
You still see clearly, literally and psychologically, at odd moments. A wise and generous friend cheered me on after that truly flattening illness at year’s end. Here’s a thought – if you abdicate (thought, opinion, perception, enjoyment) you disintegrate. But you can only inhabit what makes it work – for you. I used an image to a friend that has been of great personal significance to me. She liked it and responded warmly – but she doesn’t know what it means to me. And rather as keeping a secret is not telling anybody, I don’t intend to explain. Call it my magic.
There are plenty of things I don’t like – but the endless recitative of miseries doesn’t improve skin, digestion or temper. I thought about writing a list of what I do and don’t like but was momentarily halted by the fact that the “d” of do and don’t is the same – I’d have to find a better way to do it. I didn’t think about how much time it might take because as I say, time is.
And I have it.
Not thinking much about time is a position of privilege. I am not working, any deadline I have to meet is my own. As any interesting film is almost certain on between 2.00 and 5.00 am, if I got up and watched it and then went back to bed for the rest of the morning, it wouldn’t matter.
I remarked to Denning the other day that my house needed cleaning to which he replied “whose doesn’t ?” and we laughed. If you are coming to check on the dusting, you will have a field day !
You can use time or waste time but you can only grow time by abandoning yourself to it – until you come out the other end and recognize what has transpired – how much time has passed and why you are cold, hungry, thirsty or whatever.
You can save time by not ironing the pillowslips or turning off that truly boring Scottish Gaelic miniseries on BBC4 last night (every cliché known to man except the Asian detective in charge of the case) but otherwise – time is – and you can’t beat it, endurance rather than evasion.
Annalog 