#aaronbjorky

In early September, my friend Aaron Björky had a solo-show at FISK Gallery in Portland, Oregon. His pieces are reminiscent of Matisse’s later-in-life cut-out work. For his show, Aaron made a video piece which was translated to a book along with about 10 or so written pieces. He and I sat down one evening, and he told me he’d been thinking a lot about life and death for this show. His daughter had been born only a few months before, and that really spurred a lot of the work. He said he’d be making a book for this show, and ask me to write the introduction. I did, it follows:

I don’t think I have a normal relationship with time. I allow it to be part of my life, but I try to set the terms.

For example, the two time-keeping devices I keep with me through most of the day aren’t normal. On my phone, I display military time,  which counts in 24-hour increments rather than two 12-hour parts. And my watch, though its hands move just like any others, displays the 1–12 numbers in a random sequence. 12 at the top, then 4, 9, 6, 1, and on. Both are my small attempts to disarm time.

If time is going to happen, I try to control how. In my office, I have to be reminded of time. Not so much what time it is, but rather that it is passing. I set a 20-minute kitchen timer to go off all-day, every day. When it goes off, I immediately start it over. And this keeps time mine.

I start my day before I’m supposed to start my day— about 20 minutes early. If it is 7:00am, my clock reads 7:20am. My alarm gives me the gift of avoiding the rush.

I don’t know why time is odd for me. At this point, I should probably blame my parents. Since I can remember, my father has never been late, and my mother has never been early. Because of them, when possible, I try to be both.

Anything I can do to keep time from being spelled, in my mind, with a capital-T helps.

If I really had to sit down and think about it, I’d say: time is 94.2% misery, and 5.8% mystery.

I’ve dated multiple smart women who have explained to me that they struggle to read time on a 12-hour clock.

I remember when growing up that I hoped time would accommodate me. I didn’t want much, just for it to treat me differently than everyone else. That’s it.

When I said tick, I wanted it to say tock.

Time is beautiful when it exists without its round face and two free-wheeling hands. Without its basic specificity, it gives us big things like nostalgia, forgiveness (A.K.A. the “time-heals-all-wounds” effect), and the chance for dreams. It simplifies and generalizes in the nicest ways when we say “way back when” or “sometime last year.” And it makes complaining easier with phrases like “back in my day.”

I only know about my relationship with time. I respect it. Periodically, I’ll call it sir or Mr. Time. People don’t talk about it much. Maybe it’s the fourth part of things not proper for dinner-fodder: joining religion, politics, and money.

Let’s pretend for a second that it isn’t verboten, but rather something that could be spoken to. Anthropomorphize it. Give it a body.

I think it’s kind of pretty. I sleep easier at night thinking that time, as a person, has known all of my family members. And that it will know our kids and their kid’s kids.

I like to think it is friends with shadows and vacations with the wind. Given enough of itself, it moves mountains, and knew each and every god when they were still in diapers.

But all of that doesn’t make time a friend. Time doesn’t feel friendly. There’s too much or too little. We kill time. When we die, it was our time. It’s a currency. When we’re out with friends, we’re spending time. In our language, time bonds us. In elder communities, family homes, and every high school reunion, the phrase “where did the time go?” must be echoed.

Time reminds us we’re human.

We must remember that time is ours. Time isn’t an all-numbers affair.

For me, time is difficult to consider on a small scale — and beautiful on a much longer, bigger scale.

One of the most moving things I’ve read recently was an obituary that Mark Sumner wrote on American historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.. In it, he discussed time in its most monumental and personal way: as lifetimes.

To think of all incredible achievements and historically significant events through the scope of people is awe-inducing. For example, he writes:

“Schlesinger, Jr., one the United States’ great historians, is less than two lifetimes removed from a world where the United States did not exist. Through Mr. Schlesinger, you’re no more than three away yourself. That’s how short the history of our nation really is.  

Not impressed? It’s only two more life spans to William Shakespeare. Two more beyond that, and the only Europeans to see America are those who sailed from Greenland. You’re ten lifetimes from the occupation of Damietta during the fifth crusade. Twenty from the founding of Great Zimbabwe and the Visigoth sack of Rome. Make it forty, and Theseus, king of Athens, is held captive on Crete by King Minos, the Olmecs are building the first cities in Mexico, and the New Kingdom collapses in Egypt.  

Sixty lifetimes ago, a man named Abram left Ur of the Chaldees and took his family into Canaan. Abram is claimed as the founder of three great religions.”