time – Nourish-n-Cherish

The Peace of Pursuit

It was a rare day in which there were no pressing demands and I found myself wondering what to write. Now in wondering what to write, there was a strange sense of duty and an obligation to not waste the afternoon thus gifted for literary pursuits with anything else.

But I was also in a state of limbo – not wanting to write about any books I was currently reading, wanting to write that children’s book that has been gnawing in the back of my mind, and also itching to get that short story taken out of the attic for a proper airing and rewriting.

I did none of these.

My mind harked back to Intimations – a slim volume of essays. I have been wanting to read Zadie Smith for sometime now and thought essays a good place to begin. I do not understand what the fuss is about – some essays are good, others merely perfunctory. But the book was written and published as a sort of meditation during the early months of Covid-19. They are no works of philosophy, but one essay in which she touches upon the nature of time resonated.

It is a common refrain – if I spent half the time thinking about writing, actually writing, I could’ve had an impressive repertoire. But the thoughts of writing are far more entertaining. Sometimes, by the time the words make it to the physical form, some of that magic has evaporated. Other times, the art of writing brings forth something far different from what I anticipated and that is rewarding in itself. Nevertheless – less thinking more doing would be nice in the realm of writing at least.

Time To do : Essay by Zadie Smith in the book Intimations

I do feel comforted to discover I’m not the only person on this earth who has no idea what life is for, nor what is to be done with all this time aside from filling it.

Zadie Smith in the Essay, Time To Do, Book: Intimations

On a walk a few weeks ago, a close friend & I were talking about what is the making and breaking of us. As youth, young adults and as adults. The crux of it boiled down to what we wish to do with our time when there are no demands on it. That kind of time only increases as we age. I see many retired and older people at somewhat of a loose end. After the seemingly long years of bustling careers, raising children, paying mortgages: When all the business of living is done with, and the busyness of living is no longer there to fill our times, then what?

Those of us who are not there yet, have time now, to think of what brings us wholesome happiness, so that we may be better prepared.

Read: What is your friend?

What is your Friend?

I was musing thus on a walk with the husband one morning in which I begged for some quiet. My throat was not okay, and the river by our home was full and flowing. The husband, is not the quiet contemplative kind. Quite the opposite actually. So, I should’ve known that the quiet would last all of 100 meters. He glanced at me, and started laughing loudly.

“What?” I said.

“I was thinking – okay, I have seen the river, looked for birds, the clouds look good. What else? And I turn and look at you, and see you have a small smile playing on your lips! So, now I am thinking – did she see deer somewhere? Is that what the smile is about? I see no deer, and you still look lost and dreamy!”

river

“Well!” I croaked, joining him in his laughter this time. “I was thinking of this post actually. Tying an essay by Zadie Smith and Time.”

Oh the poor man! I started and we landed up chatting all the way back much to our pleasure.

I suppose mankind, over the centuries, has arranged life such that there is structure, work and livelihoods all to be taken care of, so that unstructured time is relatively hard to come by. Yet, I remember reading somewhere that one of the best things we can gift ourselves with is the ability to be comfortable with ourselves as there are periods (inevitably) where one is alone. The Covid years suddenly bought this crashing on the world population at once, but it is something philosophers have been musing about for eons.

So, I suppose finding something interesting to do, and finding ourselves rejuvenated in the thoughts of it, or the pursuit of it, are gifts in and of itself.

Who Am I?

Here 🥂 is to interests, hobbies and finding the Peace of Pursuit.

A Question of Time

The past week has been an interesting one in many ways. Emotions aside, what this meant in practical terms was that the nourish-n-cherish household ran on a clock.

The map says it takes 45 minutes at peak traffic, but surprise of surprises, it took 62 minutes, neatly shaving off the buffer we had baked in for grabbing a snack.

At 10:45, we would have to be there at Y parking garage so that we could get to X building at 11:00.

At 4:45, the flight leaves from Airport Here. That means, the time at Airport There would be x-12.5, but there is x+7.5 stop-over in between.

By pure chance during this time of frenzy, I had with me a slim book, Longitude – The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dave Sobel.

It made for an interesting read on how we managed to get time down to a science. Dava Sobel creates an excellent narrative around the problem of Time and Maritime navigation.

“Time is to clock as mind is to brain. The clock or watch somehow contains the time. And yet time refuses to be bottled up like a genie stuffed in a lamp. Whether it flows as sand or turns on wheels within wheels, time escapes irretrievably, while we watch. Even when the bulbs of the hourglass shatter, when darkness withholds the shadow from the sundial, when the mainspring winds down so far that the clock hands hold still as death, time itself keeps on.”
Longitude by Dave Sobel

While many astronomers tried to solve the mystery of keeping time using the astronomical events in the sky such as mapping Jupiter’s moons and their eclipses etc, one man, John Harrison set about solving the problem mechanically with a superior clock design. Clocks of the fifteenth and sixteenth century lost time because their pendulums lost their swing with the swaying of the ships, the internal mechanics rusted with the moisture at sea, and numerous other problems.

Reading about Time and how difficult it must have been to measure, has always fascinated the son & myself.

I suppose Time has become such a cornerstone of our existence that it makes for a refreshing read to hark back to the times when time was an indicator and not as much of a martinet as it is in our over-scheduled lives today.

I was reading Mrs Pringle of Fairacre by Miss Read – every time when life demands a slowing down and it is physically hard to do so, a dip into the lovely village green of Thrush Green or Fairacre does the trick. In the Fairacre books, Mrs Pringle is the competent school cleaner who is also a bit of a virago. Her scatter-brained niece Minnie Pringle is often featured – incompetent and maddening as she is, she helps(or hinders) Miss Read out now and then. In this snippet, Miss Read learns that Minnie Pringle, a mother of 3 and stepmother to 5 young children, never really learnt to look at the clock and read the time.

Mrs Pringle of Fairacre: About Minnie Pringle

I had not really taken in the fact that she could not tell the time

‘Well, I never sort of mastered the clock”, she said vaguely, implying that were a great many other things which she had mastered in her time.

‘But how do you manage?’ I enquired, genuinely interested.

“I looks out for the Caxley’, she replied. ‘It gets to the church about the hour.’ (The Caxley is the local bus)

‘But not every hour.” I pointed out.

‘Yes…but there is also the church bell.’

‘It still seems rather hit and miss,’ I said.
Mrs Pringle – By Miss Read

When I read the above snippet, I threw my head back and laughed. Almost subconsciously, I glanced at the various apps on my smartphone to remind me about the day : there were calendars synced with my meeting schedules, alarms to remind me of certain events and classes for the children, timers to help the rice cooker turn itself off, the world clock app to let me know when it is okay to call my friends in the different corners of the globe.

Maybe John Harrison (The man who came up with the design of a clock that could hold time during maritime vagaries such as storms and tidal waves without rusting or losing momentum in the sixteenth century) did not quite anticipate the extent to which the world would adhere to Time, but it is refreshing to think of a few people who are not ruled by the ticking of the clock.

Maybe we should have Do-Nothing Days in which neither the phones, nor the passing of time intrude. It will be a refreshing change for sure.

Note: The obsession with Time is called Chronomania and those who live in perpetual fear of time ticking, time passing have Chronophobia.

The Sappy Pine

I sat outside idly watching the world as it continued on its day. These rare moments of solitude and stillness are more refreshing than any energy pills being advertised on television or in between YouTube videos. The wind stirred at the pace it was going to: Today , incidentally, was idle breeze day. The clouds in the distance were parting to reveal a blue sky. The birds made their brave show chirping, catering to their little ones in their nest, or flitting about joyously it seemed.

Sitting outside like this, without any fast forward buttons reminds us of the nature of time. How come we manage to fill all our moments with alarms, and meetings, placing firm demands on the hours available to us, while other living beings around us manage to live in harmony with the seasons? The rose buds bloom, the fresh leaves sprout after winter, the nest eggs hatch, and life seems to go on: on a schedule of its own, quite distinct from what we have.

I watched mesmerized as the breeze rippled through the luscious pine tree nearby generating green soothing waves, and thought of the magic of life around us. Every tree, every plant was a marvel, and a couple of sparrows playing high near the top of the tree were a joy to watch. Nature’s forms are truly amazing.

The car was parked under the beautiful tree, and enjoying its hospitable shade. I nodded approvingly as the Californian summers have started beating down after cloudy starts to the day. It is like the curtains part around mid morning, and then the sun seems to take upon itself to show us its dazzling abilities.

Musing on how we must spend some time sleeping under the stars, watching the moonlight piercing through the sharp pine needles etc, I headed inside.

Komorebi (木漏れ日): is a beautiful word meaning the sunlight or moonlight filtering through the trees.

I managed to convey a rather jumbled version of this evocative feeling of nature to the children and husband, and they looked at me with something approaching pity. Was I alright? Did I need my head examined? They certainly weren’t having this business of sleeping under pine trees whatever else I said.

“What if a pine cone falls on your head huh?” said one, and I had no answer.

“Well….they aren’t very big pinecones.”

A large guffaw greeted this rather clever observation. I drew myself up haughtily and said, “You know how you are worried about something? Well, if you sit down outside, and watch the wind rustle the pine leaves, you aren’t. “ I said. I must admit, it sounded weak even to me, as I said it. So, I finished up strongly: “I mean nature always delivers!”

I peeked at the car standing in the shade, and shrugged happily at it. At least the car was having a good time of it.

Maybe I should’ve waited before pandering on about the pine tree, for a few days later, the car was distinctly sticky. A large dose of pine sap had dripped on the car.

“Eww! That is disgusting and it refuses to come off when you wipe it!” I wailed.

The nourishncherish household exchanged amused looks and did not say, “Nature always delivers!” To that, I am grateful.

Annus Confusionis

His voice quivered with excitement as he read the page out to us.

Never mind that it was early in the morning, and he did not yet know that the morning tea was working its way slowly through the cells waking them up. The cells were hitting snooze like the body they reside in usually does with the alarm clock. Yes, things were getting off to a slow start in the old body. The son, in sharp contradistinction, woke up like a light bulb switched on to full power with the opening of the eyelids. He shone brightly, and his vocal chords took on the timbre of the morning bugle as he trumpeted the queer finding on Time.

“Can you imagine a year with 445 days?”

“uhhhhnnnhhhuuujn”

To this legible response, he prattled on reading aloud to us from his Encyclopedia of Queer Facts.

“Yeah! It was in the year 46 B C, King Julius Ceaser corrected the lunar calendar. This year became known as the annus confusionis or the year of confusion, since the year had 445 days! Imagine how our school must have felt!” he said looking up from the thrilling page.

Time has always excited him – what it is, how do we measure it, why does it always flow forward and never backwards?

Time

I poked my cells up into waking up – it seemed the decent things to do in the presence of such excitement.

“Exciting huh?! Would they have increased the number of school holidays (a 5 month summer vacation) or the number of school days?”

It must have been enthralling. Only, school as we know it today was not in session then – schooling as we know it today only came into existence about 200 years ago to equip people with the ability to sit in one place and learn to get used to it.

So they probably continued with their statue making and war-ring even though the seasons were completely out of whack with what was happening around them. What did they name the months? It must have been an exciting time to be on the committee determining such things! I wish I could go back in time and be a fly on the wall for those meetings, instead of the ones I usually go to.

“Isn’t it amazing the kinds of things human beings have figured out?” I said, “And, then we used this knowledge to build on it, and build some more. I suppose it will only truly get boring when we have nothing to keep us curious. Thinker & Tinkers!”

This was probably the conversation that inspired me to read about Nicholas Copernicus.

I have often marveled at how Thinking Mankind figured out our place in the Cosmos, the fact that Earth is round, rotates on its axis, and so much more. After all, there were no spacecraft beaming pictures back to us then. The irony was not lost on me, that had we not figured out these things, the spacecraft could not have been built at all. How would we know escape velocities and thermodynamic thrusts and gravitational pulls in the first place?

This year is a leap year, and a reminder that we can figure out when we need years of confusion, and when we need to just look upon the years of confusion benignly to stir ourselves towards better things. Like Jane Goodall said:

“Only when our clever brain and our human heart work together in harmony can we achieve our true potential.” – Jane Goodall

Posts referenced in this post:

Books:

What We Do

I bobbed among the sea of fresh laundry. The children were helping with the folding and sorting, while I cackled and rattled around like a mother hen. Mother hens don’t fold clothes, I know, but it is a metaphor, or a simile or an odious comparison when viewed from the angle of a hen. Anyway, the conversation was quicker than the folding and after some time, I patted them on a job well done, and sent them over for a spot of week-end television. They tumbled off clucking happily. A prized activity they seem to think it is, though they seem to watch the same programs over and over again.

After some more cleaning, I took stock. True, there was loads of cleaning left to do, but that was always the case. For now, the boats of laundry were taken care of, the family fed, the kitchen scrubbed, the shoes, jackets and all the paraphernalia that is plopped all over the place were back where they belonged. The children were happily watching their week-end television, and the husband was pretending to do some work on the computer. All was well.

I gingerly stepped out for a breath of fresh air even though it was cold. As soon as I opened the door, the wind gently lifted my hair welcoming my foray into the quiet pleasures of a Winter day. I surveyed my flower pots weathering the wind, rain and still cheerfully raising their heads welcoming the end of Winter. If that isn’t an invitation for a stroll, I don’t know what is, I told myself and set off, an umbrella swinging on my arm, and my spirits slowly rising to meet the clouded skies above.

I stopped to gaze up at the trees sprouting the early Cherry Blossoms every now and then. One particular tree looked marvelous: There seemed to be a luminous glow on the cherry blossoms, with the dew drops glistening on them, and I could not help standing there, and catching a respite from the never ending activity that swirled around me. Our tasks and accomplishments seem to be so loud and cantankerous compared to this marvelous phenomenon of early Spring don’t they?

The blossoming of a flower.

I stood there wondering how lovely it would be to see the flower blossom, to actually see it expand into a flower from a bud. I suppose you could show me hundreds of time-lapse videos, but I still wanted to see the real thing. In front of my eyes.

That is the sort of thing that will try the Dalai Lama’s patience, and I am happy that the thought to at least try it crossed my mind, since I knew my limits when it came to stilling the mind. A monkey mind if ever there was one.

Watching a flower bloom is a thought that has occurred to many before me, and will occur to many after me. All we need to do is stop and admire a flower. In the River of Consciousness by Oliver Sacks, he says that as a boy, he used time lapse photography using multiple photographs and frames to develop the blossoming of a flower. To play with time in a sense.

“I experimented with photographing plants. Ferns, in particular, had many attractions for me, not least in their tightly wound crosiers or fiddleheads, tense with contained time, like watch springs, with the future all rolled up in them. So I would take set my camera on tripod and take hourly photographs…and make a little flick book. And then, as if by magic, I could see the fiddleheads unfurl, taking a second or two, for what in real time took a couple of days.”

river_sacks

When seen this way, we are all time machines, slowly growing and morphing all the time, are we not? Unfurling with furious energy that detracts at times, but all of us unfurling all the time, hopefully evolving into what we shall and can be.

I gazed up at the flowers again and wondered whether self reproach, achievement, contentment, ambition, or any of the things that seem to matter so much to human beings meant anything in the grand scheme of things. I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes by Ursula Le Guin.

“Things don’t have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What’s the function of a galaxy? I don’t know if our life has a purpose and I don’t see that it matters. What does matter is that we’re a part. Like a thread in a cloth or a grass-blade in a field. It is and we are. What we do is like wind blowing on the grass.”

The rain picked up, and I opened up my umbrella. I had stood there a long time, and my feet and hands were numb. I went in to the home, and put my wet, cold hands against the warm cheeks of the children watching TV, and they squealed half in exasperation and half in fun as the rain drops trickled down their cheeks. They chided me, united in their purpose: “Walking in the rain – being nuts! again? You will catch a cold. Go and get warm. Now!”

It was lovely to see the chicks take charge, and get a glimpse of the unfurling.

To Infinity & Beyond!

Remember the sermon about Serendipity? Don’t go by it. Take it and toss it to Tinker Bell, the fairy, when she flies over you. Because none of that works at Disneyland. Strategy, planning, timing and speed are the keys to a successful visit.

On regular days, you may not see the husband and I dancing a jig together in the middle of the road to catchy music, but in Disneyland, we do. I buy the hot cocoa for the kids, while he dashes to Adventure Land for that Fast Pass. He gets in line for the food, and I tackle the task of getting us seats to eat in. One gets the space to watch the Parade or the fireworks, the other takes the children to the restroom. Hectic? Maybe. Pleasurable? Mostly. Tiring? A little. Together? Not always. Magical? Of course!

You know how they tell you no two children are the same? Well we always knew the son and daughter have quite the dissimilarities. But never was it more apparent than at Disneyland. This is the first real visit to Dis . for the son where he did not blindly follow everything his sister does. Previously, each time, when we meandered into Tomorrow Land, we found ourselves washed out again towards Fantasy Land or Adventure Land within minutes.

This time, however, we spent more time in TomorrowLand than in any other land. Given the recent Star Wars movie release, the whole place was Star Wars themed. There were rides and museums catered to Star Wars fans. Jedi warriors marched up and down holding their parents hands on one hand and a light saber on the other. We found ourselves posing with Storm Trooper and Fire Trooper and Yet-Another-Helmet-Wearer. (They all looked the same to me and wore helmets. ) When I mentioned this aloud to the husband, he shushed me swiftly and hissed, “You are in Star War Geek territory. I mean, that could start off a serious fracas.” he said half-amused.

Boys! I tell you. The son has not even seen Star Wars, yet Tomorrow Land fascinated him enormously.

Which brings me to the question of why we are as a species so intent on knowing what the future holds for us. It is because the past is immutable and what we know doesn’t really interest us anymore?

I recently read a beautiful book, An Acceptable Time, by Madeline L’Engle in which a time portal opens up and the protagonist is able to step back in time by almost 3000 years. It was a fascinating read with time tesseracts and inter lapping time circles.

It got me thinking that if we are here now from the future, what would we change? Global Warming, industrialization, population control, disease control or some other thing that is trivial enough now, but avalanches into something bigger?

Butterfly or Humming bird effect. (https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/10/20/how-we-got-to-know-steven-johnson-hummingbird-effect-time/)

In the meanwhile, we have no idea what the future holds and whether we are making the right choices. Time alone will tell. To Infinity & Beyond – let’s find out.

What is Time?

The toddler son has always been a little preoccupied with Time. He buzzes around asking me the time every so often. Initially, of course, I did the square thing and checked the watch and told him. Soon, I realized that I could check the refrigerator, count my tomatoes, and just blurt out an approximate time. Then, I realized that he did not need the approximate time either – he just needed a number. (I tried time-to-sleep, and time-to-eat, but he did not accept that answer. He did, however, accept 14 o’clock, 14:52 – but not 14.)

The little fellow, like most children, is a question-machine. He asks why there is no half sun, why the dinosaurs died, how he came back to life to spend the day with Danny, why the flowers dried, why his sister came to the World earlier than him. What is dish – (You can eat a dish and put mammum (food) in a dish?), how to see if water reached a particular spot in the water-hose, what is before zero, how do tree roots drink water (Thank goodness, my biology teacher was not there to hear my answer.)

Sometimes, I give him an answer that is in essence correct, but otherwise useless. Like the time he asked me how to make water. (You take two hydrogen atoms, combine it with an oxygen atom and you will get water.) He looked at me puzzled and drank his water. So, I am drinking three water, but there is only one water? I never learn I tell you. After that rash answer, I spent a few trying minutes laying bare my ignorance in Chemistry for all to see.

One time, at the end of a 16-hour long day, we lay there savoring a children’s book together. I told him that it was his sister’s favorite book when she was a baby and he lapped it up. At the end of it, we both sighed contentedly and I told him it was time to sleep. That was when he crinkled his brow, and asked me what is Time. I must have looked perplexed for he went on: “You rember when I was eating applejacks cereal in the morning, you said Time is going? I want to go yesterday.”

If I wasn’t lying down, I would have gone. I am guilty of hustling the fellow when he is relishing his ‘applejacks cereals’ over breakfast, but mornings are a bit rushed in the household and my train won’t wait.

He looked serious and a bit frustrated to see that I had not grasped his simple question. “I want to go yesterday!” he repeated slowly and a bit louder than before. I know that on his timeline things that happened a decade ago qualify as yesterday, so I asked him why he wanted to go to Yesterday.

His answer to that was simple enough. He wanted to see his sister as a baby. I had to dash the fellow’s hopes. There were photographs I could show him, stories I could tell him of her babyhood, but no, he could not go back in time.

Then, he asked me why time only goes forwards and not backwards.

This is when you see me mop my brow. I tell you, I am no physicist. His questions are steadily chipping at whatever Science I have managed to grasp over the years, despite my teachers’ best intentions.

I barely understand time now. It is ethereal, and deceptive. I feel like I am spending enough time during the day enjoying the present, yet, here we are already confusing the Fall season with the sunshine that is Summer’s trademark. I seem to remember helping the fellow take his first steps and now here he is asking me for explanations that are dubious at best. If every day does not seem to fleet past, why do the years flit by?

How come I forget the name of the person I met yesterday, but remember the names of my friends from when I was 5 years old?

It is all most intriguing I tell you.
https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/09/22/the-quantum-and-the-lotus-riccard-david-bohm-reality/

Let Children Play Outside

Please indulge me once more as I meander down the memory lane. After all, The business of life is the acquisition of memories.

Regular readers of my blog know that I grew up in a beautiful hill station surrounded by hills, forests, springs and tea estates. Obviously, I spent a good part of this time enjoying my life. I’ve tasted berries whose name I know not, played in the rain, walked through the fog not knowing whether I am heading for a cliff, I have walked and run so far away from home, but nature always guided me back to my home (well, mostly, folks who worked in my parents’ school and realized I was lost), drank water from fresh water springs, cycled on ‘bridges’ made of slender logs, ran helter-skelter after spotting wild boars hiding in bushes.

Maybe, I could have died in a hundred different ways, but I also lived in a thousand beautifully different ways.

Which is why modern parenting makes me stop and think. Do we structure our childrens’ time too much too soon to remove the true benefits of unstructured time? Are we over-protective? So many of the things this article spoke about resonated with me.

http://time.com/3005611/helicopter-parenting-chilhood-obesity/

I quote from the article:

But today, to keep our kids “safe,” we drive them back and forth to school. “Arrival” and “dismissal” have morphed into “drop-off” and “pick-up.” Kids are delivered like FedEx packages. About 1 in 10 use their legs to get to school.

Do we really need 599 cars dropping off 599 children in a school less than 5 miles from home every morning? What happened to biking, walking or taking a school bus to school? It is no wonder that obesity rates are spiking.

The fact that I don’t see residential neighborhoods filled with children playing on the street saddens me. The only way to change that is to open those doors and step outside. Let children play.

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