The Myth of Time
During the American Studies Association conference (November 2024), I had the good fortune to be on a panel with Dian Million (Tanana Athabascan), a scholar in Indigenous Studies. We were talking about disability, trauma, psychology, and neurodiversity. In answer to a question, Prof. Million said, “I don’t think about time. I tend to think in terms of space.”
It was a revelation to think of time as space. Space seems expansive to me. Time can feel quite constrained. In the busyness of everyday life, I often think of time as scarce. I live inside the words of The Matrix: “time is always against us.”
What if that were not the case?
When I was chair of Africana, I found that many of the faculty (myself included) struggled with having the capacity to do the tasks asked of them. Given the utility of said tasks to our students and to our institution, it was difficult for many of us to say “no.” When we did, it was often articulated as “I don’t have time.”
That felt correct. And, yet, when Prof. Million said she thought of “space” rather than time, she opened up the vista for me to view our refusals differently.
As a faculty coach, I hear faculty complain about not having time. When encouraged to do thirty minutes of writing, they say “that’s not enough time.” By the end of the program (I work with NCFDD), they tend to think in terms of space: “I’ve created space on my calendar to write” or “I’ve created space in my mind to think about reading as writing.”
The question is how do we create space when we need time?
Some poets suggest putting your manuscript in a drawer for a few months. Give it time they say. I understand this as creating space between myself and the manuscript. I cannot feel so close to the original process of creating that I am too precious about revising. I tend to create that space by working on other projects.
In the middle of a teaching day, when I need space to write. I carve out time on my calendar. But, my brain can be slow to catch up. Meditation creates that space, distance between the events of the classroom or a meeting and the event of the writing. I can arrive in that two minutes of breathing.
Where do you need space? And who can help you create it?Between you and me, I am interested in expanding Inquiry Editing with a product that might help folks help themselves. Not everyone has access to discretionary funding and not everyone is interested in laying their writing bare for someone else. I get it. But, I am not sure what product you all might need most. Feel free to let me know what you might be interested in!