Slow mo long term
I love the slowness of timber growth and durability. Years ago my brother introduced me to the notion of tempering timber to make it more long-lasting and since then I’ve been captivated by accounts of growing and using wood in a cycle amply exceeding a (human)...
Freedom from alarms
One of the joys of leaving a job is the growing awareness that waking becomes a natural process, rather than an aural shock. This doesn’t necessarily mean waking late, just naturally, and I still get up as early as I ever did, about six in the winter and five...
The timelessness of Troy
Golding took thirty years to complete his own odyssey from Troy to Ithaka, with war and other events intervening between his first attempt, in which he passed a few miles shy of Ithaka, and the second successful venture in the early 1950s. Here he captures the...
What are decades to dreams?
Golding, sailing past the island of Ithaka, thought he would return and land within a few months. Then war and life intervened, and it took him more than a quarter of a century. Which goes to show, hang on to your dreams long enough and they can come true. Or, more...
We are love, we are
Recently found a scrap of paper with a list of 1960s-1980s progressive rock and similar bands. I believe I may have jotted them down in a conversation with one of my brothers during which we were revisiting songs we listened to at the time. To show you how young I...
The past is here, now
Ah, now I see why I always see it, it is with me, not behind me. I am lucky enough to have experienced life in such a way that the past constitutes a trove and not a hobble. The past is never behind. It is always to the side. Source: John Berger, Pig Earth, quoted in...
Of memory and vivid moments
I like Esterly’s skillful account of how the vividness of moments scrambles the natural order of past and present in our memories. Vividness can bring the past to the fore and make the present appear like a long-cherished memory even as it happens.This happens...
Skiing to stop time
A marvelous moonlit moment when David Esterly was skiing to keep the moon in a fix spot, creating a parallax effect. He felt he was arresting time for a moment and luxuriated in its apparent suspension or even reverse. ‘Hah! I could make time run backward. If I...
Time and diamonds
On a day when many people will be spending precious time with friends and family, this quotation resonates. But Christmas Day is one day of the year, and diamond-precious hours can happen any time, in joy or pain. Feel free to send me a description of some hours you...
A timeless afternoon
Timelessness seems to me a frequent result of living a nuannaarpoq moment. Losing sense of time, stepping outside its passing and urgencies. Here the author who brought me the word ‘nuannaarpoq’ describes a timeless afternoon he spent in the Arctic.I...
Time as heart-beat
We spend so much of our time measuring time, by rods or miles, minutes or seconds. But its passing is the passing of our heart-beats, our life. Less time measuring, more time living! ‘Time is not a field, to be measured in rods, nor a sea, to be measured in...
In an English country garden…
Spending a summer’s day at a fancy-dress luncheon party. We sit in an English country garden, gathered around a table laden with food and drink. Women shimmer in silk brocade and flapper dresses, men are dapper in blazers and cricket whites. Endless chatter,...
A confluence of colours
What is your idea, experience or dream of a timeless afternoon? A timeless afternoon is in a bottle of rosé on a table by the beach. I picture walking towards a low table in the middle of yellow fine sand, a light breeze in my hair, the ocean waves washing softly onto...
While the breaking waves…
What is your idea, experience or dream of a timeless afternoon? A timeless afternoon is walking on a sunny day by the beach listening to the sea and the seagulls while the breaking waves kiss your feet. Source: Luiz Photo credit: Zack Minor at unsplash.com ...
I experienced timeless afternoons …
What is your idea, experience or dream of a timeless afternoon? I experienced timeless afternoons when I woke up after an operation in a strange hospital bed, alone in a strange hospital room, and my mind was swinging between looking out of the window and falling back...
A timeless afternoon …
What is your idea, experience or dream of a timeless afternoon? It was a sunny summer afternoon. At that time of year, the long days grant us licence to be reckless with the passing hours and minutes because the sun is ensconced proudly above us and is in no hurry at...Yes, sign me up!
