not a lot, just forever

by Adrianne Lenker

Best listened to: on a quiet night, feeling deep and emotional

The light is low. No, let’s not watch TV, I need to sleep, you told him. Let’s play a game. Blankets and the chess board on the floor. Not much room anywhere else. Your eyes get heavier as he takes forever to make his move. Occasionally you startle at the chess piece clattering to the wooden floor. They keep falling through your unfocused fingers. You pass jokes about “gambits” back and forth and realize, like always, neither of you are very good. A few Checks go by unnoticed. It’s okay, you laugh. It’s not about that. When one of you decides it’s a draw, you go snuggle. Though it’s just the two of you, in the last sleepy moments of consciousness, you feel like a family.

https://spotify.link/25t9W55EpDb

Time is a weird thing. At one point, you could only be aware of the present. There was no past or future, only feelings of recognition, comfort and fear. The moment never ended except in sleep. A day is so long, then suddenly, it’s not. As you age, does your experience of time grow, or shrink? Each temporal unit is a smaller percentage of your life, but you can account for them better as you age. Monday and Tuesday. You live through it all, one lunch to the next. (This is getting dangerously close to “Seasons of Love” from Rent.) Are you fast forward-ing through it when you know what to expect? Does your anticipation separate you from the current moment, rushing you along to the future? Do you notice the motion of your feet? Perhaps you just feel the ache.

You can become more conscious of time by watching a movie, or listening to a song. The time is felt. You watch it pass. (Uh oh, now I’m Lydia Tar.) Sometimes I think I painfully experience every second by thinking too much. That time is spent much more inside my head than outside of it. It’s a lot of effort-per-moment, each one including hundreds of thoughts. I do get weary.