An Expression of The Past

“Reintroduction is explicitly framed as a ‘return’ to a point along a prior temporal trajectory, rather than an expression of the past in the present, with unpredictable future effects.”

What happens to our lives when we’ve lost parts of them to illness or some other force we can’t control? Often there’s a narrative of “returning to our old selves.”

When I was sick with undiagnosed hypothyroidism I was often told I wasn’t like my “usual self,” and once I had got the diagnosis it was all just a case of waiting until I returned to my “old self.”

I resented this “old self” so much. I knew I could never return to her, and that made me worry about disappointing the people around me.

I like the quote above from Caitlin DeSilvey’s essay on Rewilding Time. That excerpt was actually about the reintroduction of Ibex to an area in Portugal, but it could also be applied to our lives. What if we stopped trying to return to our old selves after periods of wasted time, but found ways to express parts of our past in our present, creating wild possibilities for new futures?

Rewilding Time

I’ve started to think about how the quietest places in the world are the most precious. When I say quiet, I mean places that don’t have a lot of residents, that aren’t built up with cities. Wild places.

Think about the Arctic or the Antarctic, or the ocean. Actually, it was this campaign to help protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in America which first got me thinking about this.

These places are precious because they’re filled with wilderness. Because the creatures and geography within them are becoming endangered. Because they run within their own time, yet the changes within them are a reflection of humanity’s time on this planet. Surely if the size of these places shrink, then the number of years before climate catastrophe shrinks, too.

WILDERNESS X SLOWNESS X TIME X HUMANITY X QUIETNESS

And what is it like to live in places either nearby or which have a similar wildness to them. Does it feel slower? Does being closer to nature make you more accepting of life’s seasons? I wonder what it’s like to live in an area like the Arctic Circle. Are people happier there?

And what about in Scotland — a country with many rural communities, such as those on the Hebrides. What is it like to live out there, or move out there from an urban area. How do we measure time with nature in Scotland? How is nature a measure of our own lives, and our time?

These questions of time and conservations have got me thinking of the phrase, “Rewilding Time.” So far I’ve found one academic article by an Associate Professor of Geography at Exeter University, Caitlin DeSilvey. I’m yet to complete reading the article but through her I also discovered a project called “Heritage Futures,” which focussed on heritage and related fields, and the ideas of conservations, uncertainty and transformation.

There was one quote on a post concerning rewilding which made me think about the question of nature, time and humanity being reflected in their quietest landscapes:

“to let go of nature would be to let go of the self that is projected everywhere around it.”

Letting go of nature is allowing it to run its course on its own terms. To stop trying to control it. To let go of time is the same thing — allowing it to run its course. This involves letting go of a projected self, too.

I’m starting to think that there is a parallel between time and nature and the way the human ego interacts with it.

New Years Rulin's

I wasn’t going to make a list of New Years Resolutions until I saw these, written by Woody Guthrie for the year 1943. It made me realise that new years resolutions aren’t just promises we make, they’re also a time capsule. It shows what we felt was important to us in our lives at the time. What our dreams were. What the world was like. So I felt like I should write mine down.

Woody Guthrie

But first I wondered, what resolutions would I make if I knew that 2021 was going to be a normal year?

What resolutions would I make if I acknowledged the “real” 2021?

So I first grabbed my notebook and wrote a list:

DREAM 2021 RESOLUTIONS

• go to Paris

• go to Brighton

• wear more colours

• notebook daily

• blog daily

• get research project grant

• get project grant

• create Wasted Time project

• become a cafe-dweller

• take more trips to my boyfriend’s hometown

• and take my boyfriend to my hometown

• make stranger friendships IRL & URL

• play weirder, better gigs

• get signed to an indie label

• record more tape, write more diary

• more plants & candles

• write songs that make me feel good

• make a power pop album

• spend more time in Scotland

• spend less time in places I don’t like

• move towards the good feelings

After having written that list, I thought I’d then go ahead and write the “realistic” new years resolutions. But I’m realising that I can actually do a lot of this stuff. Apart from the ones which involve travel, I think all of this is possible.

So instead of some “real” 2021 resolutions, I think I’ll just add some gentle reminders:

GENTLE 2021 REMINDERS

• accept where you are

• remind yourself that we’re staying home to stay safe

• embrace the seasons and slow moments

• everyone is only a phone call away

Reclaiming My Time

I think a lot of us have seen the video I’m linking here. It’s US Congresswoman Maxine Waters fiercely reclaiming her time during her a questioning of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. This guy Mnuchin is giving some long-winded answer to her question, probably in order to avoid answering the question at all. And hammering him back to the question is Maxine Waters, as she reclaims her time on the House floor.

If only we could do that with other parts of our lives — like an illness which has held us up in bed for a month. Imagine just announcing “I’m reclaiming my time!” and the weeks you lost fall back into your hands.

Or maybe you’ve ended a relationship which took your life utterly off course. A quick “reclaiming my time!” spins you back to the bar where it all began, and you spend the evening dancing with your friends instead.

A lot of conversation about getting back lost time on the internet centres around social media. I like this article by Christopher Butler which suggests one remedy to that is picking up a notebook instead.

Yes, social media takes chunks out of our days, and fixing that addiction is possible. But what about those other things I mentioned — how do we reclaim time from moments or seasons of life which felt totally out of our control?