Time or Not?

A blog post by Maria Rocha, Spring 2011

Before my semester in Gaming, I was preoccupied by the idea of not having a cell phone to tell the time. I convinced myself that I needed to buy a watch. This imaginary watch would not only increase my fashion points but also keep me grounded in the time. A watch was a great idea because the only way I can keep track of something is if I attach it to my body…and even then the odds aren’t that promising.

I never bought that watch. I forgot before I left and they became too expensive in Europe. The entire semester, I was forever misplacing the cell phone provided by the school or it was buried so far in my backpack that pulling it out just to check the time seemed silly, especially while on a packed and moving train.

Thinking back, however, my favorite part about this experience was not knowing what time it was. It allowed me to stop counting and allotting myself minutes to sit and do nothing or sit and talk to someone without checking to see how many minutes I’d used up. I didn’t miss counting the minutes. Keeping exact track of how many minutes I had to endure or how many minutes I wasted. I lost myself and didn’t worry about the time. I reveled. I wandered. I lived and time went on whether I kept track of the thing or not.

When it became desperately necessary to know the time I had to reach out of myself and talk to my travel companion or a complete stranger to find the time. Or, I had to look around me, really observe and take in the room to find a clock, glance at it and keep running.

So now, it’s time to go. I still don’t have a watch but I can feel the minutes we have left growing more precious as they melt away. I’m still not counting because you can’t capture the value of all the minutes lost in thought, the moments you really look someone in the eyes, and the second you know your life will never be the same.

I don’t need a watch to know how quickly life moves and how much I’ve changed. Everything else has already told me.