Now, Where Was I?

          Sitting down to a spot of diarising the other day, it came as a shock to realise that the year is already past its half-way mark. I know, it’s obvious, but I should explain that I’m not a natural in the fields of chronology and horology. I need visual aids – calendars (the original ‘spreadsheets’), clocks and fingers upon which to count. It’s not my fault, of course. If our accepted systems were logical, I would have no problem following them. For example, why does the year start somewhat arbitrarily in the middle of winter and not at the beginning of it? And who thought it was a good idea to have seven days in a week when we, the numerically challenged, can more easily cope with decimal and binary systems? And as for the variable number of days in a month, well…need I expound?

          I keep track of everything, these days, by using digital calendars and notebooks. They have many advantages over paper when it comes to organising events, especially those that are shared with a partner: referencing is easy with ‘search’ commands; upcoming birthdays are flagged in advance; filing is invisible and takes no shelf space; availability is always in your pocket, etc. And when I say that I keep track of everything, I mean past as well as future events. I keep a note of books I have read because lately it seems I remember more of those that I haven’t read than those that I have. So, if someone asks me if I’ve read a particular book, I can whip out my phone and check: they don’t have to listen to me mumbling, “I’m not sure”, and the imagined sounds of my memory-rummagings. Unfortunately, I can’t always recall the contents of that book. Neither my notes nor my memory is that extensive.

          Is it an inevitable consequence of aging that one’s past becomes a more valued asset, one in which to take comfort, one to be cherished? After all, the opposite does seem to apply: youth looks forward to life and cares not so much about what went before. Giorgi Gospodinov, in his novel Time Shelter, puts it this way, “They say that the past is a foreign country. Nonsense. The past is my home country. The future is a foreign country, full of strange faces.” He goes on to imagine clinics that are time-themed – for example, furnished in mid-20^th century style – recreating environments for those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease who feel comforted by surroundings familiar to them from their earlier days. He goes on to riff about the relationship between past and future, claiming that “Somewhere in the Andes, they believe to this very day that the future is behind you. It comes up from behind your back, surprising and unforeseeable, while the past is always before your eyes, that which has already happened. When they talk about the past, the people of the Aymara tribe point in front of them”.

          Confused? Well, yes but it can be argued that our past, being a part of what we are at present, is very much in our sights, while our future, if not exactly perceived as being behind us, could at least be described as lurking at the corner of the next intersection. As far as my diary is concerned, however, time is strictly linear, which suits me fine, as I would be quite lost in any other space-time continuum, unable to plan our upcoming excursions to Spain and Athens, which was why I had my diary out in the first place. I suppose what got me started was the realisation, as I made myself comfortable, that our living space is furnished in a certain mid-20^th century fashion, a style that has always been my favourite. So, inadvertently, it seems that I’ve prepared for what might come.