Time has always been slippery thing to quantify. At all moments, time is flowing over us, past, present, and future all connected and intermingling like an infinite ripple effect. In an effort to help define and commemorate changing seasons, and to slow down this infinite (and increasingly fast!) chug forward through time, my partner and I embarked on a somewhat passive, yet consistent, background activity and project for us both to enjoy.
Since the Spring of 2020, which we will all know threw a proverbial stick in the world's spokes with Covid-19, my partner and myself took to the habit of doing (almost) daily walks in our neighborhood. To dust off the cobwebs of daily anxiety and worry, and to reconnect with the outdoors and ourselves. We are fortunate enough to live near Lake Michigan and a beautiful forested park with some walking trails through the ravines that separate the lake from the surrounding neighborhoods. My partner took to the habit of collecting small amounts of unique leaves and other plant detritus that caught their eye on these walks. Saving them up, leaf by leaf, page by page pressed into wax paper between pages of stout books, the leaves accrued over the next 2(!) years.
What were we to do with these little moments of grandeur, frozen in time, with their spectacular colors, and time weathered textures?! We did not know. The collecting just continued, like squirrels collecting nuts, nourishing our hearts and minds for what seemed to be an eternal winter ahead. Tucking them away between the pages of time, to be used for something, anything, at a later date.
“Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?”
-T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
As time pressed on, ever forward, the leaves piled up into a sizeable collection. Pandemic time continued to pile up as well, wearing on us as we put aside our normal social lives and outlets in the interest of our health and the greater good. The reflection on this time, and what might have been but wasn't, led me to reflect heavily on what really is important at the core of my life. Health, time, loved ones, the natural world, and connecting with the earth and communities (large and small) are where my mind led me. The small collages that these nearly sacred leaves culminated in were a reflection on these newly refocused commitments to self, health, love, family, friendship, mother nature and community. These were all collected over the course of nearly 2 years, and the creation fittingly took place over the last month of 2021, with the intention to give away to family, and friends new and old. With the hope of a new year ahead, and the memories of time past behind, these leaf works were an attempt to freeze a snapshot of the past, look ahead, but most importantly, to hopefully bring a sense of presence and grounding to right now.
If T.S. Eliot's passages hint at what I think, then rumination on the past, and ideation of the future are not what is essential to being, existing. That lies entirely in the here and now.