‘In No Time’ has always meant happening very fast, which is how our pre-lockdown world worked, necessitating the divisions of time in calendars and diaries, with bells, alarms and personal assistants to police it. Time has had to be calibrated in all sorts of units, down to micro-seconds if you are an astronaut or athlete. My phone alarm went off early this morning to signal that it was time to leave on the long drive to Orkney where we had planned to spend a fortnight. It was quite sad, a reminder that Time has been cancelled and we’re living without the Gravity of Time – in both senses of the word – the element which gives us our bearings and the element which reminds us that our lives are packed with serious business. Being timeless requires making some mental adjustments like the hangers-on in Dr Who or readers of Stephen Hawking. So Time is always such a central component in our living and in our imaginings – Time Machines, Time Lords, Time Warps. Time has been our tyrant and for a few months many of us have escaped from it. I’m beginning to feel I’m floating In No Time or Neverland, an undistinguished convoy of identical days heading for an indistinct destination.
“All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, ‘Oh, why can’t you remain like this for ever!’ This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.” ― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
We also know we must ‘grow up’ and cannot remain with Peter Pan forever. I was reminded last night that time will one day shove back into gear when I was asked to complete an on-line survey by the Live and Local organisation which brings high class entertainment into our village venues. I was brought up against the brute reality that somewhere else organisers need to assess our readiness to engage once more with public entertainment because funding, careers, community venues are at stake. Serious business. We keep being told it's so serious that we'll be told how it will happen at the end of the week. Organisers can’t play at being Peter Pan. I was being marshalled into being time-responsible, even though the future to me still seems hypothetical and fictional and I have the opportunity to continue being time-extravagant. As we cancel holidays some shimmering chimera of a future is posited – do we get a voucher to redeem later? Do they hold our deposit until next year? Do we want to make a speculative booking for September or May 2021? Do we trust Ryan Air? Do we even want to be bothered planning futures yet? Listen to the wisdom of the mole:
"'I've learned how to be in the present.'
'How?' asked the boy.
'I find a quiet spot and shut my eyes and breathe'.'That's good, and then?'
'Then I focus.'
'What do you focus on?'
'Cake,' said the mole" (The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse -Charlie Mackesy)
Even with the fetching masks that Deirdre has made us will we be too scared, indecisive, and demanding of certain conditions? Will we wobble outside the Glebe or evoke some angelic aura before entering church? Or maybe we’ll be braver for the things we want to do than we would be for the things we don’t want to do.
Some societies, ones that we would call undeveloped or unsophisticated, don’t have any tenses in their language except the present, because they’re not needed. The past is contained within the present experience and the future will simply be a repeat of today. Obviously these are cultures where daily routine doesn’t vary and a change in the rhythms of life is inconceivable. Sabbaths, sunsets and seasons are sufficient markers. I wonder how long we would have to live like this before we lose our ability to imagine a future. Maybe one aspect of the ‘new normality’ will be that we are less pre-occupied with the future and more invested in the present. As long as someone else does the future thinking for us. I would quite enjoy that, much as I always liked having a few holidays or social events planned. We may also become space constrained. Our ancestors rarely travelled more than a mile or two from their homes and their boundaries were fixed by how far they could walk in a day, or by a feature in the landscape beyond which they never ventured. Driving to South Wingfield or Matlock becomes a slightly naughty and exotic adventure.
We’re often on the receiving end of two contradictory poles of wisdom. There is Ralph Waldo Emerson’s, “It’s the not the Destination, It's the journey,” which implies there is reward to be had in constant movement, and then there is ‘Leisure’ by W.H.Davies, which is more in tune with me at the moment:
What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. No time to stand beneath the boughs And stare as long as sheep or cows. No time to see, when woods we pass, Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass. No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams full of stars, like skies at night. No time to turn at Beauty's glance, And watch her feet, how they can dance. No time to wait till her mouth can Enrich that smile her eyes began. A poor life this if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.
We all know both are important for our well-being and the art is to juggle and enjoy both philosophies. We are rolling stones and this year we’ve paused long enough to gather moss, before rolling on into a mythic future - which is a seamless lead into our afternoon outing.
One seldom spoken of phenomenon of lockdown is the problem of making a 12 inch lining fit a 14 inch hanging basket. The answer is of course gathering moss. So over the hill we went and scampered down through a wild flower meadow, two Julie Andrews figures tottering tunefully downhill. Carpeted with garlic, neither plague nor vampires would invade those woods where I foraged for moss, a lovely, soggy and I hope a legal harvest?
Time for many is a desperately rare commodity at the moment. We can’t help them much except pray for them, think of them, grieve for them and applaud them as we watch the shadow move round the sundial of our days.