Eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in.
-A line from Mary Oliver’s poem: To Begin with, the Sweet Grass
They say that the days make a life. Many of us put effort into structuring our individual days because we are members of a society that functions on synced schedules. Our lives require scheduling: meetings, exercise, social events, dates, playdates, school functions, even our free time gets a block on the calendar.
Since I gave birth I have become obsessed with time in a new way. Things came up that I never once gave a thought to: utilizing my limited “free time” well, tracking all of that breastfeeding time (there’s an app for that!), time left on this Earth (who knows?!), nap time, bed time, meal time, time to make art.
In a life where every second feels irreplaceable, the burden to utilize every second can be suffocating. I am frozen in decisions about what to do with my time, because no one thing feels big or important enough to fritter away a precious second doing. The pressure of limited time sends me into a panic; knowing that this could very well be my last day on this Earth.
Societal ways of understanding time often involve the Gregorian calendar. You know the one, you've got it on your phone. There’s 12 months divided into weeks (not nicely divided, either. Did a rabid raccoon choose the number of days in a month?! Oh yes, most months are 30 days long, but some are 31 and one is 28 except every fourth year when it’s 29 days).
Anyway, you know this calendar. You enter kindergarten and they upload this calendar to your consciousness. It’s the way the western human world functions.
This way of keeping time was invented by some men a very long time ago probably for efficiency and increased productivity. It is pretty convenient to set a date and know that your buddy will be waiting for you outside the restaurant at said time. For most of us though, it’s eating our souls. You’ve heard of the Sunday scaries? The Monday blues? Hump day? Thirsty Thursday?
We give nicknames to the days as a coping mechanism for surviving the weeks. I suppose I have spent much of my adult life trying to peel myself out of this cycle. At my first job out of college I negotiated a lower salary so I could have Wednesdays off work. I knew that going into an office and sitting behind a computer five days in a row was going to kill me. Then I started an entire business (hello, Closed Mondays) based on the idea that we all need and deserve three day weekends.
Now, I live in a phase where two things are true. There are some aspects of life in which the days are absolutely meaningless. I work for myself, my partner works for himself, our young child stays home with us all but one day per week. The days organized as weeks don’t matter too much in our small orbit.
Of course, we interact with the greater world around us, so we must weave this calendar into our lives. I rely heavily on certain institutions that have strict weekly schedules (story time on Wednesdays, day care on Fridays, the YMCA staff watches my child on Mondays and Saturdays).
But a toddler doesn’t really care about days of the week, our bodies do not naturally heed the cycle of a seven day week, making art does not happen only Monday-Friday.
I’m in the process of consciously re-imagining my relationship to time.
There are cosmic ways of organizing time that pull at me. Circadian rhythms, moon cycles, Earth’s seasons, and of course, the tides. The push and pull between my google calendar and the celestial calendar have been heavy on my mind and spirit. I have to oblige the weekly calendars to be member of our society, but the idea that a scheduled life is the only way to conceive of our time here is beginning to dissolve.
REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #59
What we need to know is laws of time & space
they never dream of. Seek out
the ancient texts: alchemy
homeopathy, secret charts
of early Rosicrucians (Giordanisti).
Grok synchronicity Jung barely
scratched the surface of.
LOOK TO THE “HERESIES” OF EUROPE FOR BLOODROOTS
(remnants of pre-colonized pre-Roman Europe)
Insistent, hopeful resurgence of communards
free love & joy; “in god all things are common”
secret celebration of ancient season feasts & moons.
Rewrite the calendar.
Head-on war is the mistake we make
time after time
There is a way around it, way to outflank
technology, short circuit
“energy crisis”: retreat & silence
cunning
courage & love
-Diane di Prima
Available to read at The Anarchist Library
Links
Mitchell Volk with the zine making resources
Friday Pattern Co - Wow! The pattern company of dreams, great size range, you can order physical patterns or print at home. Wow wow wow. I have downloaded the sport short pattern and am going to get going on it this week.
Forever Ruth Asawa, truly can never get enough photos of this woman’s extraordinary life.
That’s it for this week, see you next time.
Bekka
😊