sense of time.

 I’m a materialist. Not like Madonna, the material girl living in a material world, I simply believe in physical matter and not the spiritual realm. However, in recent times, there have been moments that I have felt my mother has been trying to communicate with me from beyond. Firstly, a sequence of books that I read in a row in which the protagonist dealt with the relationship with their mother (or children) causing me to revisit my own relationship with my mother and reassess many events and conversations. Then, last night, locked in a fever dream, hearing my mother call out ‘I know you are Michael, and I just want to see if I can help you in any way.’ But, even in the dream, I was too sick to respond. Finally, I regained strength and called out to her. I entered from outside into a kitchen (one from my teenage home) and she was calling back ‘where are you?’ When I walked into the living room, I saw her sitting on the couch close to the balcony door. I was standing in front of her, but she was looking around the room asking, ‘where are you?’ Finally, we were in the kitchen together and I told her I had prepared some fish to be cooked, then discovered she was already cooking it with fish that she had added. We started to discuss how the fish had been prepared and the dream ended. In this instance, it came at a cost… it is 2am and I am awake. 

                  Being awake at this time always elevates the sense of time. How so many of us give up our time (and, often, our dignity) to earn a salary. We wake up when we would prefer not to and then give hour after hour after hour to sitting at a desk and staring at a screen. In many cases, this is after a long commute to an office only to face the same long commute after all of the hours. If we are fortunate enough to be able to work from home, we may have a little more flexibility to lie down and rest our backs, or to stand up and take a break from the desk, but we are still locked into that screen, still chasing demands and trying to fulfil requirements whilst being judged by colleagues of all levels. Sadly, in most cases, we have no alternative. In many cases, we could lower our cost of living and do something less demanding. Of course, if I could go back thirty years, I would force my younger self to start investing and, by now, I would be reading books all day every day at my own pace and interacting only with people I chose to. 

Local beer on the beach, Huntington Beach, California.