Footnotes to a Conversation, November 28, 2022
Time Opulence
Time. I am always fretting that I don’t have enough time, that I’ll never get everything done. But then there are moments when I’m absorbed in a task and time stretches to infinity. After a 3-month-long bike trip across the US, a young woman says,
“Something that I loved so much over three months of bike travel and that I’m trying so hard to keep up in real life now is the sense of something I call time opulence. That is, the sense of being fully present in every moment, not feeling like I have to get ready for the next thing or worrying if I’ll finish something in time. The sense that what I’m currently doing is what I should be doing, and that I don’t have to worry about the next thing until I get there. That time is something that stretches unimpeded into my horizon and I will have enough of it, without having to wrestle it into a schedule to make sure it all gets done … But a lesson that I still learn over and over when I travel and then come home again is that my sense of time opulence doesn’t actually come from having more time, it comes from my own relationship to the time that I do have. If I try to pack a million things into it and schedule every last second, I always end up feeling time-poor, like there’s never enough time to do what I want, or to do it well. But if I can approach time as something stretching away into the distance the way it was on our bike trip, full of potential and with so much of it out there, even when I have a lot of things I want to do with that time I feel much better and less stressed about it. And I still get things done, but in a way that feels like it was on my terms. [CarFree Rambles]
Creation
The first author we know by name was the princess, priestess, and poet known as Enheduanna who lived from 2334 to 2279 BC. “She is the first author who tells us something about how she created these poems. She likens the act of literary creation to childbirth, the first known use of this metaphor, which will remain in use for millennia in world literature.” [Live Science]
Hollywoof
If you’re looking for some funny, light reading and love cats and dogs, I recommend reading Mimi Lee Gets a Clue by Jennifer J. Chow. There’s a talking cat, some romance, and a whole bunch of chihuahuas – not to mention family game nights, a mean school principal who gets her comeuppance, and a gruff police officer who turns out to have a heart of gold.
Life Everlasting
An article about the microbiome of artisanal cheese is not for the faint of heart who would rather not look too closely at what they eat, but it’s fascinating. “Cheese isn’t just a snack, it’s an ecosystem. Every slice contains billions of microbes — and they are what makes cheeses distinctive and delicious … All a cheesemaker does is set the right conditions for the ‘rot’ of the milk … ‘Cheese shows us what goodness can come from decay. Humans don’t want to look at death, because it means separation and the end of a cycle. But it’s also the start of something new. Decomposition creates this wonderful aroma and taste of cheese while evoking a promise of life beyond death’.” [Knowable]
“Mending is ancient and essential work that feels quite lost in the world of throwaway [culture].”
Three entrepreneurs who are giving old clothes a new life through upcycling, embroidering, and mending. [Refinery 29]
Footnotes to a Conversation is a weekly Monday feature covering an assortment of topics that I’ve come across in the preceding week – books, art, travel, food, and whatever else strikes my fancy. I also post occasional articles on other dates, including frequent book reviews and travel tales.
If you share my love of nature, check out EcoFriendly West, an online publication encouraging environmental initiatives in Western Canada, and Nature Companion, a free nature app for Canada’s four western provinces.