Time
In my memory, some years are just monoliths: so much seemed to have happened and occurred. Others are barely blips. 2005, for example, is a year I could name nothing about. Not a single occurrence is lodged in my brain from that year. 2019 is a big year for me. 2020 was not. I'm interested in how time seems both linear and relative. I'm interested in why and how our brains, memory, perception and our own inaccuracies layer up to create an incredibly bizarre pastiche that makes complete sense and nonsense all at the same time.
Sometimes things that I remember that are thematically connected seem super close in terms of my memory. Something like, starting teaching and traveling to Taiwan, there's something connecting these in my head - youthfullness, freedom, I don't know, but they were three or more years apart. Similarly, Outkast's 'Hey Ya' and house parties are sort of the same in my head, but I think Hey Ya came out when I was 13, and I didn't go to many parties till I was 16, so that's a big chunk of time between things that just feels like it isn't there. But then what's complicated is in the three years between the song and the party there are other memories that are stuck together, getting my second job (working at a board/card game store) and the first time I really quit something as a semi-adult (playing games like that).
Time and memory sort of seems both like a spider web and a box-and-whisker plot, this weird relay race being run in every direction simultaneously and completely unpredictably.
In a few weeks, the cohort of people I started teaching with are having a ten-year anniversary. For those who don't know, I started teaching through Teach for Australia which, at the time, meant myself and 37 other people were on a two year intensive crash course, often living and working together for weeks at a time. It was a time of incredibly deep bonding and while I don't stay in touch with all of those people, it's incredibly rare to have such a formative experience in such a communal way, especially as an adult, especially in Australia where most people do not move to a University town to study as they may do in the USA or UK.
Ten years on and a lot has changed. Most people have kids. Most have had job changes. Many have been sick, dealt with difficulties, lost a dream or suffered a tragedy. I think about myself in that timeline and so much about me is different: my appearance, my personality (I'm MUCH more mellow), my job, my motivations, hell I hadn't even taken a single photo when I started teaching. I hadn't realised how much I enjoyed making art. I'd never written outside of University. I thought I wanted to stash all my income, buy a small house on a big piece of land near a forest away from the city and just retreat from the world. I hadn't realised how vital people and community is to my life.
Sometimes I'll re-read a letter, card or gift a student gave me and just be lost. It's amazing that some of the students who felt strongly enough to reach out are people I've now forgotten. I have their writing and their emotions, but I can no longer recall their faces, their mannerisms, who they were and how we knew each other. That gulf is somewhat closed when I re-read things, but not completely. I don't think there's any great tragedy or loss here, but it is thought provoking for me. Why do we remember some things so viscerally and other things slip away? How come I can remember dozens of fun trivia facts, but not the basics of how to do admin without fucking up? I've memorised, not through any effort, so much about art, but cannot, for the life of me, remember what the medical training terminology is (which is embarrassing as I always have to ask my brother, my friends and people I meet who are doctors 'what's a resident? is that a PAID internship? what's unaccredited again?'). I know I don't know it, but never seem to master it.
Ah well.
A few cool things!
Tall Poppy Press (my publishing company) has launched its second book. Have a look here and, if it speaks to you, buy a copy :)
My book on eagles is still available for pre-sale, though I will close this maybe in 1-2 weeks
I have some news about a few exhibitions, but I will share this when things firm up a bit :)
Have a great long weekend. If you're like me you have three four-day-weeks in a row which is just fucking splendid. Cheers to April, what a gorgeous month for that reason alone :)