I have no concept of direction. It seems that I've mentioned this--but I have gotten lost in my own backyard. I thought I was going to end up at my back porch, but came out into the clearing of the church parking lot next door, instead.
I have lived in the same city for nigh 16 years, and still get lost when I go to the east side. Carefully parking my car where the gas station attendant can't see my plates, I go inside to play the "I'm from out of town and need directions" game.
In proportion to my lack of directional sense is my husband's absent concept of time. Every year, he asks, with a frown on his face "When is Christmas?" It's always on the same day, by the way.
Often I catch him relating an event from two weeks prior as "six months ago." Fortunately, I have a steel grip on temporality, and can usually tell you (oddly enough) the day I last wore my green Old Navy Sweater, how many days its been since I last ate a gummi bear, how long that empty bowl has been sitting on the back porch.
Lately, I've been reading up on defining time (horizontal? vertical? Imaginary?) and examining the temporality of medieval texts. This will make for some "tuning fork" moments, believe you me--just imagine throwing Stephen Hawking, Byrhtnoth and Augustine of Hippo into a ring, and you'll see what I mean. It gets ugly.
Imagine, then, the traumatic conversation that took place earlier this evening when I had to persuade Floyd that it is, in fact, Wednesday. The man was utterly convinced that it was Tuesday. He had an arsenal of evidence, which consisted of everything that he did on Monday. His persistence got the better of me where his logic failed, and set me on a paranoid downward spiral, augmented by my recent preoccupation with how time functions.
...maybe it isn't Wednesday. Did I miss a day? Did I make a day up? Is this moment in time overlapping with one that came before it? Did I not finish that paper? Holy shit!
I close this post with what is quite possibly my favorite movie quote ever:
"What if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today!"
--Phil from Groundhog Day.
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