eros, logos: time's arrow

Thursday, February 05, 2009

time's arrow

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
William Blake, Auguries of Innocence

I wrote recently about the spaces between: the way affairs are interstitial creatures existing in the spaces between a life, on the fringes. These small spaces belie the way lovers create an entire world for themselves and a whole mythology. We are creatures that love and crave narrative, and when we fall in love we invent whole mythologies, narratives about ourselves and our lover, and our love, and never cease to enjoy returning to them and building them anew. In a licit relationship the archetypal story is 'how we met', and it's no wonder that children, lovers of stories, clamor to hear certain stories again and again: how their parents met, when they were born. They recognise more clearly than adults that we exist in the stories we tell and the narratives we weave. But even in unions without children, the public performance of the story 'how we met' is a duet which will alert the careful listener to the hidden tensions, if any, beneath a seemingly placid surface.

I've often thought that one could track the progress of a love by listening to the stories we tell. Do we still tell them to ourselves and each other in the same way, or has it subtly changed? Arguably a couple could never uncouple if one or the other had not dropped the narrative thread, subtly stepped back from the pattern they were weaving.

I want to write today about the way time itself has a peculiar property in an affair. It's the most precious quantity of all, and necessarily in limited supply. If there were a natural law about this, it would probably state that our craving is in inverse proportion to the time available: the less time together, the more intensely the flame burns between us. The moments are sweeter for being stolen, held more tightly and more precious to us because of what they represent. The stolen five minute phone call on a weekend just to say I can't stop thinking of you is so much more intense, so much more meaningful, precisely because of its rushed and compressed nature.

We speak of stealing time, but of course time cannot literally be stolen; it is not a concrete entity to be picked up and hidden in one's pocket. The only way we can begin to approach the nature of time is through language and metaphor itself. If we say a long time has passed, we've used two metaphors: time can be neither 'long' nor 'short'--it is not a piece of string--and it cannot 'pass' us--it is not a ship or a train.* Being spatial creatures, it is only metaphor that allows us to get a grip on what time itself is and begin to understand it, and so we use spatial metaphors like 'timeline' to allow us to comprehend it.

And as spatial creatures, as interstitial creatures creating our own world, our narrative and our time are twinned. Unlike the licit couple, we do not usually have an audience for the stories we tell; we exist in a private world where only the two of us exist. And unlike the licit couple, time is a commodity to be hoarded. Our affair exists in the spaces between, like those small interstitial ecosystems in between grains of sand, but it also exists in the times between, when we think of the other and long for them in their absence, when we tell and retell our stories to ourselves, waiting, patiently for the next episode.

The stolen hour in the hotel room both lasts forever and is our eternity and passes all too quickly, those hidden sands running out of the hourglass of our selves.

* Frye's English Delight: Metaphor. Listen here.

Labels: metaphor, radio 4, stephen fry, time

posted by O @ 02:38


9 Comments:
At 05 February, 2009, Frequent Traveler said… Good Thursday morning O. "one could track the progress of a love by listening to the stories we tell. " That is SO very true, and so poignant... At 05 February, 2009, A Sinful Affair said… The statements are perfectly executed above. How they all ring so true to al lof us that share in the love affairs that we crave to continue in. Lovely my dear, lovely. At 05 February, 2009, Anonymous said… A not-so-clever pedant writes ... That it's Fry not Frye. That he is clever enough to realise that maybe you did this deliberately, but not clever enough to discern the reason for himself. And that he is clever enough to very much enjoy and appreciate this post, but regretfully not clever enough to be typing a comment that engages with the post in a more interesting way than "I like it." At 05 February, 2009, Anonymous said… Dear O....We are forever locked together in time - my lover and I. As always, your thoughtful words are of great comfort to me in this place, this place sometimes called Hell... At 05 February, 2009, Aurore said… when we think of the other and long for them in their absence, when we tell and retell our stories to ourselves, waiting, patiently for the next episode This is exactly how I feel...it's been three weeks since I've seen MO...patiently waiting. (and while it is not an affair, I think the nature of our relationship and the distance between us, creates the same kind of narrative). At 06 February, 2009, Danni said… There is one thing that online affairs have as a bonus - the narrative is already written. Z and I chat via gmail exclusively and I have chat logging turned on. I can reminisce, go back and see our first words. Relive the pain of the bad times and compare and contrast to the bliss that is now. I treasure that. At 06 February, 2009, Moi said… Every time I come here, I leave struck by the beauty of your insights and writing. At 06 February, 2009, alphagirl said… O, so beautifully written. And today, the end has come...the narrative has changed for one of us. Will e-mail soon. alphagirl At 10 February, 2009, DnWormer said… I've often thought that time is the truest barometer of the status of a relationship is time. When i've loved time flows, when i've lusted time jerks and stops.
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