beginning at the end
So what is the thing about time?
Someone asked me once. But I’m no longer sure there is an answer to give.
In this project, I dedicated myself to writing at least a few lines of poetry or fragments, every single day for one full year. This would be interspersed with photos, and words connected to them.
(It will take more than a few words a day to write what I plan to do next. I am currently working on a novel.)
I will say this: time has a stubborn refusal to make sense. One year stretched out into infinity in the first few months, and then before I could inhale, it was over. It is over.
It was not a perfect year. I missed more than a few entries and made up for them later. I finished the whole thing two weeks late, which was in no small part due to my life being turned upside down by an 8.9 magnitude earthquake and the related tsunami, then the subsequent nuclear meltdown. I have kept much of my identity a secret but that much deserves to be explained, I think, since the last few weeks of writing took a decidedly dark turn as a result of the experience. I feel as though I am looking at Tokyo now through some warped and smoky window. But it is clearing slowly, I hope, with time.
We were lucky in Tokyo. Those I know and love are fine. But many in Tohoku are not. And the grief and gloom here are palpable, something that presses into the cracks of every conversation, weighs down our laughter. But we will get lighter.
I debated whether or not to say more about myself. And as is often the case, I remain uncertain. I feel something is lost from the work by doing so. Inevitably, I may end up using these works, or parts of them, in a book. And if that is the case, they will carry my name. Friends who I know outside of Tumblr know who I am. And it is likely not very difficult to figure it out for those really burning to know.
And if you really want to know, just ask.
But, for now, there is this three-hundred-and-sixty-five-entry…thing. And if you decide to read the ponderous mass from the top, you will do a strange thing: you will live my year in reverse.
My thoughts, experiences, flights of foolishness — you can, for once, move slowly backward in time through them, each entry disappearing into its own potentiality as you go until you finally wind up at the beginning: that place where the only thing about The Thing About Time was its potential.
But, my thanks again to everyone who found me and stayed with me through this. You’re all the best.
