Time Slows Down
“I look at time as no more than an idea, and I consider eternity as another possibility.”
I wake to the sound of my husband making coffee. Before I open my eyes, I know the sky must be clear; I can hear a chickadee singing her spring song on this January morning. After years of waking up at 4 am with feelings of panic and anxiety, I now mostly sleep through the night. I feel well rested. I stretch, starfished across the bed. What shall I do with this day, I wonder?
They say time speeds by as we get older. Not so for me. Lately, life stretches ahead like a long, meandering river; and I am drifting slowly along. I felt the need to establish a routine, not wanting to waste time. Yet other than anchoring my days with a morning dog walk, and curling up with a book at night, I keep my days wide open to possibilities.
Is it this pandemic that has changed my concept of time? Is it this aging journey? This week in The Pause, Pádraig Ó Tuama wrote, "as certain experiences fundamentally shift what is important to us, our relationship with time changes." Is it possibly my new granddaughter who has subconsciously helped me realize that what once seemed important has become less so? I can sit for hours with Charlotte on my lap, crooning and singing while watching her stretch, coo, and smile. Time disappears when I am with Charlotte.
In this week’s episode of On Being, Krista Tippett talks with British journalist Oliver Burkeman, author of the recent book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. Burkeman suggests that we view time as a commodity. He says, 'we have this idea that it's something we have and can use well or use badly, make better use of, sell to somebody, buy from somebody.” Time and work are intimately related; time can be converted into money, and money into time. This sense of time is a very industrialized concept.
In traditional agrarian societies, time is often experienced as more cyclical, both repetitive and slowly advancing. Each day the sun rises and sets, the seasons follow one another. Children are seen as ‘adults in training’, expected to help with tending crops and livestock. The status of elderly people is part of an exchange process; they are respected for their wisdom and passing on of property. In Buddhist culture, time, as well as life, goes around in a circle. Crops will be harvested, the sun and moon will rise and shine, and generation will follow generation.
This speeding up of subjective time with age has many theories, with no consensus on the cause. One theory presents an argument for neural signal processing. Over time, the rate at which we process visual information slows down, making time ‘speed up’ as we grow older. A simpler explanation suggests that for a 10-year-old, one year represents 10% of their entire life and only a small proportion of their conscious memory. But one year for a 50-year-old represents less than 2% of their memories. So, while childhood days seem endless, adults experience rapidly fleeting days. Another hypothesis states that as young children have faster heart rates and faster breathing rates, is it likely that their brains’ electrical rhythms also occur faster. And if the heart’s pacemaker slows the heart rhythm as we age, this may slow our internal sense of the passage of time.
Interestingly, I can find nothing to support time slowing down as we age. I wonder if those of us – and I suspect I am not the only one – who feel time slowing down, are looking through a child’s lens? I wake up in anticipation of what the day may hold because most days, I have very little scheduled, except for self-imposed activities, activities that can easily be re-scheduled!
Last spring I wrote about loose time, a term made up by my friend Annie. Loose time, she shared, is unscheduled time, unconstrained, and without a need to go somewhere. This pandemic has gifted her loose time. She said that if there was no pandemic, she would be attending meetings and getting together with friends. Now she plans her time differently. She sets up a list of things she needs and wants to do during the week and then lets the days unfold.
Loose time appeals to me, it feels spacious and freeing. I shared in that blog post that I am reluctant to commit to anything ongoing these days, as I want to leave my time loose, free to go where I want and do what I want. On those mornings when I wake up early to brilliant sunshine and chickadees singing in the tree outside my bedroom, I head off along the river with Tucker for long, slow walks. When Canada Post rings the doorbell and I find a new book leaning against the front door I may immediately stop what I’m doing, pour myself a cup of tea, and start reading. Loose time means afternoon naps. Or it may be a Facebook message sent out to friends who live near, anyone fancy a walk into the village right now? Loose time is what I feel when I sink into the presence of this new baby in my life.
I share again, this quote from Mary Oliver’s book of essays, Upstream:
It is six A.M., and I am working. I am absentminded, reckless, heedless of social obligations, etc. It is as it must be. The tire goes flat, the tooth falls out, there will be a hundred meals without mustard. The poem gets written. I have wrestled with the angel and I am stained with light and I have no shame. Neither do I have guilt. My responsibility is not to the ordinary, or the timely. It does not include mustard, or teeth. It does not extend to the lost button, or the beans in the pot. My loyalty is to the inner vision, whenever and howsoever it may arrive. If I have a meeting with you at three o’clock, rejoice if I am late. Rejoice even more if I do not arrive at all.
I feel much the same. It is only now, in my later years that I am embracing this relationship with time. What once seemed important has become less so, and I now give my time to what calls my attention.
How do you feel about time as you age? Do you feel it speeding by faster? Or, like me, do you float slowly down the river, savouring every moment, giving time to what calls to you?