Esther Chilton prompt “future”

We were asked to write to the prompt future and as I don’t have a crystal ball I decided to look back at what our future selves might remember.

“In future when people look back at the first quarter of the twenty first century what will be remembered? A first black American president, increasing global temperatures? Will the remember the global financial crash with Lehmann brothers? Bird flu and Sars then a global pandemic of Covid 19. Massive forest fires, huge hurricanes, tremendous tornados? The deaths of famous people including Queen Elizabeth the Second. Madness of global leaders? Ukraine, Gaza, Yemen, Sudan, so many wars.
Will our future selves see a disintegrated world, a dystopia bought on by the lack of interest in pollution or global warming. Big business using its powers to continue to push oil and gas and plastic use? Will our seas fill with more pollution or the pollenating insects die off so crops fail.
Will they see this part of the century as depressing, or will we take the future into our hands and pass on a cleaner and greener future to our children and their descendants?”

Everything!

Do you need a break? From what?

For those that follow my blog you will know I’ve been going through a couple of bad years. I really want things to stop going wrong. I feel like the universe is jumping up and down on my head. I’d like a break. That’s just a few days where I can relax and recover.

Holidays, that’s a word I don’t think I will hear in the future. I have ‘leisure time’ but that’s just sitting being bored because I don’t have anything I can do or want to do. I’ve spent years looking after someone and I’d love to have that responsibility back. The silence is deep sometimes. Thinking is not a ‘break’. We would talk and chat, breaking that silence with serious thoughts or silly humour. I could always make him laugh.. There is no laughter now.

Now

Do you spend more time thinking about the future or the past? Why?

The past is behind me, I cannot change it. I want to, but it’s twisted up like knots or knitting. Tangled threads that tie everything in place. Nothing can escape again, so I say let it be. Don’t get caught in it’s net and be held back by the past.

The future is out of control without a time machine. Each step of the day splits and shatters into a miriad of gleaming shards. Each action reflects against the next and distorts the future more and more, until the never ending possibilities are too mixed up to see clearly.

So I prefer now. I grip it tightly and try to hang on, like holding a tiger by its tail as it thrashes about. I try and control it as much as I can, I never know if it will slip my grasp and fall apart. But I try.

Time

Time washes through the landscape, light transforms the colours, shatters water, creates cold and hot spots. Thinking about atmosphere, time ticks across my mind. Change and stillness held face to face in a slow embrace. Taste and smell senses change. No more daisy chains, just dry grasses, emerging from gravel. Birds flit across the planet, like a time lapse film. Here and gone, gone and back again. Generations. How to define time? A single vertical plane of paper, sliding over bumps and humps, a thin slot that holds open but does not exist in more than two dimensions. Behind and in front no longer exists or has never existed. Time flies forward at a walking pace….

Keeping in touch.

I’ve realised how out of touch I have got with some people. It’s not deliberate, but I’m one of these out of sight, out of mind people. I tend to be aware of things in the ‘now’, and the past is gone. It’s helpful because I don’t dwell on bad things from the past, but on the other hand it makes me forget to keep in touch with old friends. Can you know too many people? I don’t think so. But I can’t hold them all in my head! So my intention is to try and at least say hi once a month…. I need to remind myself to do it…..

Back to craft fairs?

I have tentatively put my name down for a couple of craft fairs later in the year. It’s taken a while because I’m still concerned about covid and being in crowds. I’m trying to lower my anxiety levels. I went to an outside event at the weekend but still put a mask on when I went inside. As the craft fairs will be inside buildings I will be very aware of the situation. I’m still not going into my Studio at Spode and I think it’s the same thing. My shaking arm appears to be caused by anxiety (I do feel very tense), I might be getting some help, I’ve got to find out what’s available but hopefully I will be able to get back to normal eventually.

What next?

I want to know the future, that people will be safe in their homes, that war will not escalate. I try and be positive, but a few men (and it is mainly men) have most of the power in this world. The rest of us are not involved in those decisions, we are just along for the ride.

What can people do? Protest, take action, or is acquiesce all we can do to save lives? Who can tell?

Thinking of Time

Present, what is it?

You can’t see the past or the future. You might be able to remember the past but it no longer exists as a physical thing. The future might be predicted, but it doesn’t exist yet.

I tried to imagine how it works. Like walking through a door or a window. The present would be a thin flat plain of glass with your body perhaps caught in it, and the past and the future would be ghostly after images of a leg or the impression of an arm projecting into the future….

Clearly it isn’t really like that. Our limbs don’t dissolve into a misty future or fall into a darkening landscape behind us. But it’s interesting to think about. We are ‘present’ in our present. We need to realise how strange the universe is. We need to care for our environment. We cannot see the future but we can try and make it safe for our future selves and generations.