time dilation -
timepiece (object as a portal)
there’s nothing more performative than a watch on a girl who can’t tell time.
friday morning on my route through mott street my mind kept returning to the vision of a vintage gold watch, the algorithmic feed Big Tik Tok has shoved down my throat like livestock. walking six minutes from the canal station i avoided the tourists flooding chinatown at the first prospect of warmth, routing to mike’s watches.
the shop is empty save for the balding asian man in the cornerit takes me a few minutes to fumble together my crinkled dollar bills at the same time as the clumsy mandarin, and i barely get out 手表 before he cuts me off — don’t worry, i can adjust whatever. which one? both?
cheeks flushed & i shake my head wordlessly, and resume to staring at the mirror for an eternal decision on which one i thought would fit my wrist better. i tried to rack my brain for what the man from watches of switzerland had said all those years ago — the watch face should be halfway the size of the wrist? no, a third? an ex-boyfriend obsessed with marks of luxury, dragged me from one watch store to another, pursuing some patek phillipe pipe-dream.
i just need a quick fix. i don’t need something that lasts, i tell myself.
he goes back to speaking cantonese to the locals who have pulled up. my gall to communicate has escaped me, but i extend my hand and allow him to fasten a watch onto my wrist. it’s a beautiful thing, golden framed bezel and faux diamonds glittering in the store light.
there are certain turning points of life when your perception of time shifts. the numbness in the day after you graduate college. the gossamer stretch just before falling in love. mom says things shift after you have children, with a pointed look at me.
in the break of summer heat, i feel restless. time feels slippery, an elusive thing that is constantly escaping my grasp. like some koi fish i struggle upstream against water that’s going downwards. trying to speedwalk my way into chinatown, constantly bumping into traffic jams behind the slow-moving grandmas dragging suitcases across the jagged streets.
signs of age worry me. i heard you shouldn’t smile to avoid wrinkles, but i can’t help myself.
maybe because it’s a harsh reminder of how differently time unfolds for my parents versus me - i am at the start of my career while theirs winds down. time dilates based on our gravitational pull to the world - in this strong gravitational field the currents pull me in and out.
my parents pass down advice the way that others pass down fancy watches. my dad never had to explicitly state to be on time is to be late, but he’s imbued his sense of urgency. mom, however, needlessly reminds me to slow down.
she keeps track of my life on a vintage red calendar. tear off calendar, each month is a physical piece of paper lost to the ether when she rips it off. annie visits home in chicken scrawl on the 17th, pick up jason from airport.
i find myself wandering, looking for a time machine.
what makes a neighborhood timeless? chinatown, home of vintage watch shops and creaky fruit stands, traditional medicine outposts and plant shops watched over by lucky cats. it’s a place that resists the passage of time, where momentum stands still, where the ancient traditional chinese characters stubbornly persist even in the face of simplification. i pop into a plant shop to procure a leafy orphan. not much of a green thumb, i know it won’t last, but i amble. it’s the aliveness in the streets.
we have endless metaphors for time, the way it unspools, slips away, accelerates, how it physically moves and lurches forward like some wild animal. it’s this thing we’ve invented and cant tame, name and can’t place.
everyone has a theory of time, and so i present mine: time dilation, where time feels slowest at the beginnings and endings of our lives. borrowed from interstellar, it can drastically affect the perception of time for those in a strong gravitational field compared to those in a weaker field.
all humans want to do is control time. all they can do is build something that lasts. is this not why the egyptians built pyramids that would outpace their lifetime.
someone brings up that you should flow within time.
at your youngest: with only few years accumulated, each year matters more at your oldest: with only a few years left, you hold onto every minute the truth is im terrified of outliving my parents. every year is taking the math to its final end - when im 30 theyll be 68. when im 35 theyll be 73. it already aches when they walk, their bodies already frail. a child’s experience of time upturns when they realize how old their parents are.
maybe each day will only go faster from here. i mis sphysical calendars.