This newsletter was written on Thursday, October 20th and is coming to you Sunday, October 23rd in the wee hours of the morning.
On my mind lately is the control of time. The control that time has over my life. I’ve thought about this for many years with the understanding of time’s constraints really rubbing me the wrong way at about the age of 8. But even that is it’s own strange marking; the marking of time by age. I understand that there are humans on our planet that don’t mark time by age or by the age an event was experienced. I tend to mark moments in my life by how old I was when I experienced something: a first kiss (14), a significant love (20), starting a band (25), returning to my birth place (26), or getting married (33). I have asked myself in the past, how is it that we all know what time it is? Of the nearly 9 billion recorded people on Earth, we all abide by the same clock or a variation of it. How did this happen? Well, if you’re guessing colonization, you’re right.
I’ve been reading Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock by Jenny Odell for the last week and while I am not quite finished, I am completely captivated. I have a horribly difficult time retaining detailed and academically rich information, so I have been reading the book outloud to myself and to my partner in a british accent. I’m becoming quite good. And also quite upset that the condition of our lives is reliant on productivity as is informed by the clock. Envision this triangle I am perpetually locked within: Productivity requires rest requires time requires productivity requires rest requires time requires productivity requires rest. When did this happen? Before the industrial revolution. Before child labor laws. Almost as soon as capital could be made on humans labor, it was done so. It was done so with slavery and when slavery was “abolished”, new forms of labor were made in which workers would sell their skills and time for a wage. For employer profit.
This isn’t something I am going to go further into here, because then you’d be doing the mental labor of reading a way-too-long newsletter from someone who is angry about capitalism. But what I want to say is, if you haven’t thought about how distorted “time is money” is as a concept, and a concept many of us take seriously, then now is the time to start deconstructing it. Saving Time is absolutely shaking my brain open and making me question much of how my time is spent. I want to also extend that productivity as it stems from capitalism is rooted in white supremacy: it is rigid, unforgiving, urgent, strives for perfection, is defensive, and “values quantity over quality”. It further oppresses and devalues those of us who cannot be “productive” or create “capital” based on societies standards. It prioritizes able-bodied citizens for higher-wage positions and it takes advantage of and further disenfranchises disabled citizens (and many other marginalized citizens).
I want my time back. I don’t want to be the cog. I also have to be a cog. I don’t have a choice in my life time, or so I believe. And if I were to find that freedom to live through time as I please, it would be at the expense of someone else. I am not okay with that. No one should be a millionaire, just as no one should be hungry or unsafe. Until we can radically reform or abolish our capitalist state, I am going to enjoy my free time uninterrupted as much as possible. Those hours may be few, but they will be mine.
This past week I was working at my job, which doesn’t cost me my well-being and often keeps me sane. I have been feeling, though, as I balance school and internship and clients and day-work, that I haven’t been as productive at this job. As a bookseller, I haven’t been reading as fast or as much as I would like and when I am at work I am so tired from all of the tasks I accomplish away from that job that I am not nearly as productive as I would like to be. And I would like to be because I truly enjoy my bosses and my co-booksellers more than I can express in a short newsletter. I was feeling really tapped-out when my co-bookseller Syd yelled from the back of the store, “Alej! Jennette McCurdy posted you on her Instagram!” No way. No way! I yelled so loud I scared our shop dog Clio. But it was true. Jennette McCurdy, actress and author of I’m Glad My Mom Died, wrote my name with her two hands.
It feels good to have this surprise happen at a time when I am feeling low. Jennette’s book really moved me. It’s her story of abuse, physical and emotional, and the disordered eating and depressive symptoms that followed. I have said it before and I will say it again: these types of stories are never earned or deserved. We are not owed these stories from anyone. It is a gift that we can share and be seen and also be witness to each other in this life. And I am grateful for a book like this. And grateful to be acknowledged for writing my small thoughts on a small card on a big shelf in a bookstore where some of my best memories to date reside.
Lastly, I took a long walk in the woods today that reshaped my spirit. I had this moment of realization that I am okay. I am struggling, yes, but I am okay. When I walk through the woods I think of the person who gave me the gift of wonder that occurs only between trees, fungus, dirt, plant life, and wild life. Worlds within worlds. I thought about my parents. I thought about the people in my life. I thought of an important day coming up and how so many cherished people will be there. It is only possible by the stepping stones of the past that I am here today as I am, just right for those I love and who love me in return. I felt overwhelmed with joy and grief. I caught myself in a swirl of wild life and felt this need to capture it, but I didn’t. I remained present, remembering my friend Sun’s words: “I did nothing else except I just told you about it”. So I am telling you, I witnessed the most beautiful moment between the trees today. And only you know, I know, and the trees.
