The Year of Time and Space

Yesterday, I decided that this year-- the year from St. George's Day 2021 to St. George's Day 2022-- would be the Year of Time and Space for me.

I have a difficult and complicated relationship with time and space. I'm never quite sure where I am or what day it is. I have to think about it. I'm always impressed that most people can say "Good morning" or "Good afternoon" without even having to think about it.

Added to this, my sense of direction is abysmal-- truly absymal. When I try to convey to people just how bad my sense of direction really is, they invariably think I'm exaggerating. I can get lost almost anywhere.

I have a very limited understanding of spatial relationships. For instance, the library where I work has four floors. I find it extremely challenging to work out how the layout of one floor relates to the layout of the other floors, to know what's above my head or beneath my feet at any particular spot.

That's not all. I've lived in Dublin all my life, but my grasp of Dublin geography is worse than that of most people who have lived here for a year or two. Several times in my life I've been asked: "Are you really a Dubliner?".

And it's not just Dublin geography. I struggle with all geography. I can remember, in primary school, how the teacher used to pull down a large laminated map of Ireland and get us to memorize counties and rivers from it. This seemed utterly impossible to me and I couldn't understand how the other children could do it.

My sense of temporal relations (so to speak) is almost as poor as my sense of spatial relations. Recently, I realized that I could remember nothing at all from 2003. I know I was working in UCD, and I know I was living in Ballymun. I know I was going to the cinema a lot. But that's about all I can remember. I can't remember any specific occurrences.

I wish I'd kept diaries all my life. I kept a continuous diary from June 2015 to some time in 2020. Then I gave up on it, but more recently I've been keeping a simpler chronicle, in a small desk diary. (My previous diary became so elaborate, so comprehensive, it was becoming a burden to keep it up.)

Despite grappling so clumsily with them, I'm completely fascinated by the concepts of time and space. This fascination has grown on me over the years.

I've always loved stories about travellers going to places which have a distinctive character of their own; the Odyssey (filtered through pop culture like Ulysses 31), Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, and so on.

Similarly, I've always been fascinated by special times. I've written ad nauseum, on this blog, about the impression one Halloween night made on me when I was a little boy.

A lot of my conservatism has been a craving for special times and special places, a hunger for festival and tradition, for local and national character.

I think that's very legitimate, but I also think I miss out a lot on the more subtle differences in time and space. I've sadly been oblivious to many of them, through a lack of observational skills, and a tendency to absent-mindedness.

On a more abstract level, the very existence of time and space-- of different times and spaces-- has a kind of thrill for me.

I used to be a big soccer fan. Every soccer fan knows that Anfield, the home of LIverpool Football Club, has a famous sign in the players' tunnel which proclaims: "This is Anfield". The thought of that sign has always given me a thrill.

I get a similar thrill from the line that I've put in bold from Sir Thomas Wyatt's poem "Mine Own John Poins":

Nor I am not where Christ is given in prey
For money, poison, and treason at Rome—
A common practice used night and day:
But here I am in Kent and Christendom
Among the Muses where I read and rhyme;
Where if thou list, my Poinz, for to come,
Thou shalt be judge how I do spend my time.

Time and place seem exotic to me. I am enthralled by the thought: "This place is different from every other place in the world." Even the most non-descript place is different from every other place in the world, purely by virtue of being a different place. I am here now, rather than all the other places I might be. It would take me some time to get somewhere else. This place has its own history, even if nobody knows it. Countless other feet have trodden this ground before me.

So, to come back to how I began this post, I have decided that this year is going to be the year of time and space. Instead of being fascinated by time and space in an abstract way, I'm actually going to try to get some grasp of them.

Specifically, I'm going to try to get a grasp of geography and history.

First off, I'm determined to be more aware of both. I'm the kind of person who disappears into my own thoughts when I'm on a journey, instead of noticing the places I'm passing through. Similarly, I tend to filter out place-names when I'm watching a news report or a television programme. In future, I'm going to try to notice them-- to relish them.

I'm also going to try to study maps and timelines. As I've mentioned before, I've been memorizing poetry for a long time. I have over a hundred poems memorized, including some long poems such as "The Raven" and "Elegy in a Country Chuchyard". In order to keep them fresh in my mind, I recite them to myself constantly. I've realized this is the only way to retain them.

I've decided that I'm not going to acquire any more poems for now. I'm going to keep the ones I've memorized fresh in my memory, but now I'm going to concentrate on memorizing dates and studying maps. Half of the historical dates will pertain to Irish history, the other half will pertain to general history. Like my memorized poems, the memorized dates will be something I regularly refresh in my mind, on a daily or near-daily basis.

(I've also been wondering how I can "timestamp" memories, so I can relate each one to a particular period of my life. I've noticed that music is a good way of doing this. So I'm thinking of playing a particular song regularly each week, one that I wouldn't be listening to otherwise. I'm thinking of drawing them from chart history; for instance, the song for this week would be the song that topped the music charts this week in 1971. So hearing that song will recall that week to me, I hope.)

Hopefully, on St. George's Day 2022, I won't be so hopelessly adrift in time and space. Here's hoping!