Lost in time

“Sometimes you’re only a passenger in the time of your life.”

- David Sylvian, Snow White in Appalachia

“Monday no rewinds”

- Blaudzun, Monday

This morning it happened again. I woke up. It was getting light outside. A grey Monday morning.

I opened my computer, typed my password, opened Facebook and failed to scroll down the page. The trackpad didn’t work. I tried all the tricks I knew without a result. So I revived the old monster - a 2005 Powerbook with a malfunctioning screen and an ancient operating system. It was slower than slow. I didn’t have access to the documents I needed. E-mail sort of worked, Facebook only turtle-speed. No real use.

I considered driving all the way to the nearest city to get my MacBook fixed but I only left Amsterdam yesterday evening in order to stare at the wet trees, exchange quick glances with the robin, be woken up in the night by the sound of a horse running, to be silent, to slow down. Haha, to slow down ......

I gave the stuck trackpad a last try, I gave in, closed the computer and made myself some breakfast. Monday. Monday?

Last Thursday I woke up here because somebody tried to open my front door. I heard the key turning in the lock, the key that is hidden somewhere well, not a lot of people know where to find it (probably everybody in this small conglomerate of wooden houses in the woods has a key hidden under their doormats – mine isn’t ....). I jumped out of my bed, grabbed some cloths and welcomed the carpenter with whom I had agreed to have the repair on the window done on Friday after 10. It was Thursday, 10.30. I had slept 5 hours, after having worked all night.

“I thought you would come by on Friday?” I said and he gave me a strange look before he answered: “But it is Friday!” My brain quickly got itself together and ran through the last couple of days. I remembered walking through the woods on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, the day before, a Wednesday, wasn’t it? I remembered another walk earlier in the week. I remembered walking and thinking “no, it isn’t Tuesday today, it is only Monday”, having the feeling I just gained a day. And after that Monday there was a Tuesday and a Wednesday and then today, Thursday. Thursday? Had I been living in the past for four days in a row? I couldn’t have. Or could I? While the carpenter started taking out the window I quickly checked my computer. It says the day in the right upper corner but I never really look at it. Friday it said. I laughed, quickly got my things together because I was supposed to be in Amsterdam on Friday morning. I made a phonecall, postponed my meeting, made coffee for myself and the carpenter who works for a company that was founded by two related families named Hammer and Grind, no joke. Timmer & Schuur, Hammer & Grind.

While we were drinking coffee I tried to explain to the man how it happened that I ended up thinking it was Thursday on a Friday and how it somehow fits a way of living in which there is more time for things, where I am trying to plan less and be more. But mixing up days so seriously hardly ever happens to me and I was happy to notice, that, while my brain told me I had just lost a day, it didn’t feel like that at all. I must be making progress. So I drank my coffee slowly, waved out the carpenter and drove to Amsterdam. Did what I had to do there, listened to music, sorted out some things, decided on Sunday evening to change plans, hung around another day, got a lot of work done and returned to the woods last night, Monday evening.

So today must be ... Tuesday.

Tuesday?

It happened again. I woke up on a Monday morning and in a split second Monday turned into Tuesday. A day has disappeared .... no .... time has disappeared. And returned. And nothing has changed.
So I made coffee. And while drinking it I played the record that was still lying on the record player. Blaudzun sang “Monday” again. And I thought about my walk from Amsterdam to Vienna and how off and on I had met somebody on the road who had told me: “Ah, how wonderful to walk for so long, if only I had the time ....” and having said that he or she had stared into the distance with dreamy eyes. Every time again I had smiled. I had used different words to give the same answer: "Time is just there. You can do with it whatever you want. It is yours, not the other way around.”
I never put it is as boldly as a friend who wrote on here blog that we have to TAKE time (and not ask for it, like power it is not given away freely) and who writes that true rebellion lies in taking back our time.* But I think she is right. Take it. Have it. Use it. But most of all: forget about it. Get lost in it.

* Andrea Hejsklov: Reclaiming time