A lesson about time
Right behind the opera house, where people of all ages, sexes, sizes and nations hurry about their days, eagerly focused on their next destination, right there is a small art gallery with an ancient wooden doorframe.
And when you decide to leave the fast paced street and make your way past the noise, the heat and the sweat and enter through the massive door, a welcoming bell will announce your presence to the owner of the gallery and just like that all relevance of time will disappear.
Smoke fills the tiny space as Luisa, the owner greets you with a smile and brings a cigarette to her lips with shaking hands. Hands that have spent a lifetime carefully selecting, trading and admiring unique pieces of art.
This is not a place to come and buy — it is a refuge for souls like you and I. For people that do not belong to a certain place or time on this earth, but have been around and seen so much over the course of many lifetimes. It’s a bit of quiet in an ocean of noise. A space for beauty and for art - for a kind word and a glass of wine with a stranger.
The paintings are stacked up high on the shelves - so high, they reach the ceiling, yellowed by smoke. Luisa does not sell a lot of art anymore. Not like she used to, when the pieces' uniqueness made them desirable, valuable.
Now, in a world where imitation and mass production became a trend and art lost its gravity she buys much more than she sells, just to save another story from being carelessly thrown away and forgotten.
I take a seat as she pours me filtered coffee with unstable hands and enjoys a moment of peace, a moment of infinity in a world that is running out of time.
Little particles of durst are swaying in the air of the stuffed room, mixing with the smoke of Luisa's cigarette. The gallery has definitely seen better times, and so has its owner but there is something magical in the decay of such a timeless place, such a timeless face. It’s not just a gallery, it’s never been. People come here only if they know the place or the owner and for every soul walking through the wooden doors, Luisa will brew some coffee, make a tea or open a bottle of wine stored in the back shelf next to papyrus rolls.
Today it is only me and Mimi here in the gallery. Mimi is great company if you are in need of a quiet listener, but the conversations are often one-sided and today I am not in the mood to talk. Nevertheless, I make space for her to curl up on the table next to my cup and run my hands through her long, gray fur until she closes her emerald coloured eyes and purrs in satisfaction. Mimi is a stray cat, in case that was not clear by now. She has been in the gallery almost as long as Luisa - some argue, the cat was born the same year as her, as they have never seen woman and animal apart. Under normal circumstances, this would not comply with logic, but you will learn that the concept of time does not apply to these four walls and anything or anyone inside. This is not a place to do - it is a place to be.
A visitor enters the gallery and is announced by the heavy golden bell dangling behind the door. Out of all the three of us, I am the only one lifting my head and turning toward the visitor. An old man with a worn out leather coat, dressed as if he came from a time and place far away. Alien and yet strangely comforting. He might not fit in the perception that I have of the outside world, but he does fit perfectly into this room full of stories dating back further than any of us could begin to remember.
With heavy, slurping steps he hoists himself across the room and onto the seat next to me. No glance into my direction, no word of greeting, nothing to acknowledge my presence. For a moment I ask myself, whether he and I are visiting the gallery at the same time in history.
Underneath his coat, he pulls out a large leather sack, opens it and pulls out some loose pages of inscribed paper, some old coins, a pipe and tobacco. The pipe he brings to his dry, pursed lips and stuffs it with tobacco, as he slides the rest of the items back onto the sack.
Luisa waddles across the room from where she was standing towards the strange guest, fishes a wine glass from one of the shelves and pours red wine from a dust covered bottle before she lights a match to ignite the tobacco in the pipe.
The hissing sound of the match travels through the room followed by the bubbly growl of the pipe and a cloud of smoke travels up to the ceiling.
The man breaks the silence with a bear-like growl and raises his glass, cutting through the lingering smoke, as if to say “drink with me”. Before I can politely deny (I came here to bid some time and we all know that is better done in solitude), I find a full glass of dark red wine in front of me.
We salut, we drink, we purse our lips to taste the rich aroma of the purifying liquid and we place the glasses back onto the counter.
“What do you do here? A kid like you in a place like this? What makes you worry about the time?” Where I expected the raspy voice of a man that spoke a lot in his life, I hear a Child's melody come out of the dry, wrinkled lips. Unlike anything I have heard before. A child at heart, captivated in an old man's shell.
I came here to escape, to find some time hidden away in a corner I haven’t checked behind yet. To get back some of the hours I have wasted back when I did not understand the gravity of time. Back when I thought I had unlimited time left. When time had not turned into money yet and money had not been my desire. Back when being was the only thing I wanted to do; when it was enough.
“I am running out”, Is what I say
“Of time?” His look reveals astonishment and the line on his forehead deepens as I nod and reach for my glass of wine. I close my eyes for a second and as I open them again, the man smiles mockingly. He lets out three high pitched Ha Ha Ha’s, shaking his head in disbelief.
“You speak as if you own it”
“Own what?”
“Time, dear. You speak as if time was something for you to own, to chase. Tell me, are you running after time?”
“Well indeed I am. Aren’t we all? We know we have limited time on this earth, in this container. And I have so many dreams, so many plans and visions I want to archive in my time here”
“Ah, I see” a knowing smile makes itself noticeable on the old man’s face. He takes a long drag of his pipe and blows out a large cloud of silver smoke before he cares to continue
“You, my friend, think time is a house.”
“I don’t follow”
“You think of time as a house in which you need to fit all your furniture.”
My confusion seems to be obvious, because it encourages him to elaborate:
“You have a lifetime. That is your house. And in this lifetime you have a list of experiences you would like to, well, experience, am I right”
I nod, thinking about all the things in my bucket list.
“Now you try so hard to fit all those experiences in not only a lifetime but in time spans within essentially the first half of your lifetime. A career by the age of 26, Married by 30, kids, a house, a trip around the world.. all before you even reach the middle of your precious time here. And because you tried to fit so much in the ground floor of your house, it will be full very soon and you will not even be able to reach the staircase, leading up to the vacant top floor. And by the time you worked through your list, you will have become tired with the constant hurry and spend the second half of your life looking back at glimpses of memories overshadowed by all that happened and wish you could relive them because you didn’t pay enough attention the first time.”
Mimi, the cat comes and curls up on my lap, as if to protect me from the embarrassment cooking up inside me. I take a sip of the wine in front of me and swallow down the unpleasant feelings. My companion seems to notice my discomfort and lays his fleshy hand on my arm. The warmth of his palms is surprisingly comforting to me and the gentle exchange of a smile makes me feel a bit more at ease.
“Don’t worry.”, he continues. “Many people try to make sense out of time. - it can be quite amusing!
Some people, for instance, like to think of time as a currency, others as a product,
They think it’s an exchange. Like you can buy experiences, knowledge, love, connection, sex with time or by selling your own time.
Some incentives take more time, others less but in the end, they will all run out of it just as you will run out of space.”
I lean back in my chair to think. All he is saying makes sense to me but it still doesn’t help me with my issue.
“But I am running out of time. How can I get more of the currency - or the space?”
Another, child-like laugh emerges from the depth of his chest so all consuming that it even scares Mimi and she jumps off my lap onto the floor, where she pretends that the recent happening did not phase her and that it was her decision to suddenly jump down all along. With her paws stretched out in-front of her, her back arched down and her butt in the air she lets out a long yawn and waddled away from us with obvious disinterest.
“You are in luck, my friend. I can give you more time.”
My heart skips a beat. This was all I was hoping for. Someone who could extend my time.
“How much more?”
“Oh kid” he lets out a sigh and as he does, I hear Luisa giggle in the corner.
“You young humans will never understand”, she mumbles while dusting off some of the books on the desk.
“Time is not a number of years, months, minutes or even seconds. That is what we created to wrap our stupid little heads around something much much bigger than us.”
He sucks on the outlet of the pipe, tobacco sizzling, smoke being blown out.
“Your time is not better or worse spent but stuffing it full of furniture, nor can you buy it and sell it. There is a social misperception that time must be used productively, that it is ours to save and ours to spend. Time is not something you do - it is something you are.”
“I don’t follow”
“If I would give you 10 more years, how old would you get? How much more time would you have?”
“Well…” I start to think. Slowly my mind begins to wrap itself around the old man’s words. Would 10 years more make me happier? How could I know if I don’t know how old I am destined to become in the first place? -
“There you are”
Had I spoken out loud? But before I can ask, the old man with the child like voice continues
“Let me give you time in a different format:
When you leave this place, and go back into the world where time runs, feel how the souls of your feet touch the ground with every step you take. From the heel to the top of your toe, rolling off the ground. Then take in a deep breath and trace the air all the way down to your lungs and back out. Reactivate your senses, we shut them out too often for too long. Smell the subtle hints of life in the air around you. The scent of fresh flowers on the market, of coffee beans in the morning, and cigarettes in alleyways. Smell the air right before a thunderstorm and listen. Listen to children laughing, cars driving, dogs biting, lovers quareling and doors opening. Make sure you look at everything twice and don’t shy away from sharing a smile. Don’t rush and don’t worry - or try to at least. And do not think about time so much. Trust me kid, it is not yours to understand”
The whole time, my eyes had been strictly fixed on the red liquid in my wine glass. My head is spinning and I am not sure if I have yet been able to put the pieces of what he said together. Time does not belong to me. The thought is relieving and terrifying at the same time.
“Are you alright, darling?” I look up to find Luisa leaning over me motherly.
“Y.. yes”
I turn my head, expecting the old man sitting in his place but when I look over there is only Mimi, curled up next to an empty wine glass with red stains all over its cup and neck - and some on the table. I arch my back further to maybe catch a glance of him at the door, but the gallery looks like no one has entered or left in a long long time…
“Have you found what you came here looking for?” Luisa’s voice gently wakes me from my trance. I get up, gather my stuff, stroke the lazy cat and turn around to the owner of this magical gallery one last time.
“That I do not know”, I admit “but I might have found something better”
The bell announces my leaving as I bash through the door and into the world where everyone seems to be running after, against or simply out of time.