Rewilding Time

I’ve started to think about how the quietest places in the world are the most precious. When I say quiet, I mean places that don’t have a lot of residents, that aren’t built up with cities. Wild places.

Think about the Arctic or the Antarctic, or the ocean. Actually, it was this campaign to help protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in America which first got me thinking about this.

These places are precious because they’re filled with wilderness. Because the creatures and geography within them are becoming endangered. Because they run within their own time, yet the changes within them are a reflection of humanity’s time on this planet. Surely if the size of these places shrink, then the number of years before climate catastrophe shrinks, too.

WILDERNESS X SLOWNESS X TIME X HUMANITY X QUIETNESS

And what is it like to live in places either nearby or which have a similar wildness to them. Does it feel slower? Does being closer to nature make you more accepting of life’s seasons? I wonder what it’s like to live in an area like the Arctic Circle. Are people happier there?

And what about in Scotland — a country with many rural communities, such as those on the Hebrides. What is it like to live out there, or move out there from an urban area. How do we measure time with nature in Scotland? How is nature a measure of our own lives, and our time?

These questions of time and conservations have got me thinking of the phrase, “Rewilding Time.” So far I’ve found one academic article by an Associate Professor of Geography at Exeter University, Caitlin DeSilvey. I’m yet to complete reading the article but through her I also discovered a project called “Heritage Futures,” which focussed on heritage and related fields, and the ideas of conservations, uncertainty and transformation.

There was one quote on a post concerning rewilding which made me think about the question of nature, time and humanity being reflected in their quietest landscapes:

“to let go of nature would be to let go of the self that is projected everywhere around it.”

Letting go of nature is allowing it to run its course on its own terms. To stop trying to control it. To let go of time is the same thing — allowing it to run its course. This involves letting go of a projected self, too.

I’m starting to think that there is a parallel between time and nature and the way the human ego interacts with it.

New Years Rulin's

I wasn’t going to make a list of New Years Resolutions until I saw these, written by Woody Guthrie for the year 1943. It made me realise that new years resolutions aren’t just promises we make, they’re also a time capsule. It shows what we felt was important to us in our lives at the time. What our dreams were. What the world was like. So I felt like I should write mine down.

Woody Guthrie

But first I wondered, what resolutions would I make if I knew that 2021 was going to be a normal year?

What resolutions would I make if I acknowledged the “real” 2021?

So I first grabbed my notebook and wrote a list:

DREAM 2021 RESOLUTIONS

• go to Paris

• go to Brighton

• wear more colours

• notebook daily

• blog daily

• get research project grant

• get project grant

• create Wasted Time project

• become a cafe-dweller

• take more trips to my boyfriend’s hometown

• and take my boyfriend to my hometown

• make stranger friendships IRL & URL

• play weirder, better gigs

• get signed to an indie label

• record more tape, write more diary

• more plants & candles

• write songs that make me feel good

• make a power pop album

• spend more time in Scotland

• spend less time in places I don’t like

• move towards the good feelings

After having written that list, I thought I’d then go ahead and write the “realistic” new years resolutions. But I’m realising that I can actually do a lot of this stuff. Apart from the ones which involve travel, I think all of this is possible.

So instead of some “real” 2021 resolutions, I think I’ll just add some gentle reminders:

GENTLE 2021 REMINDERS

• accept where you are

• remind yourself that we’re staying home to stay safe

• embrace the seasons and slow moments

• everyone is only a phone call away

Reclaiming My Time

I think a lot of us have seen the video I’m linking here. It’s US Congresswoman Maxine Waters fiercely reclaiming her time during her a questioning of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. This guy Mnuchin is giving some long-winded answer to her question, probably in order to avoid answering the question at all. And hammering him back to the question is Maxine Waters, as she reclaims her time on the House floor.

If only we could do that with other parts of our lives — like an illness which has held us up in bed for a month. Imagine just announcing “I’m reclaiming my time!” and the weeks you lost fall back into your hands.

Or maybe you’ve ended a relationship which took your life utterly off course. A quick “reclaiming my time!” spins you back to the bar where it all began, and you spend the evening dancing with your friends instead.

A lot of conversation about getting back lost time on the internet centres around social media. I like this article by Christopher Butler which suggests one remedy to that is picking up a notebook instead.

Yes, social media takes chunks out of our days, and fixing that addiction is possible. But what about those other things I mentioned — how do we reclaim time from moments or seasons of life which felt totally out of our control?

UNGLOOM 2021

So, since about 37 days ago, I’ve been writing a tiny song a day.

What’s a tiny song? A little demo-like song that takes under an hour to record, and lasts for less than a minute. Tiny song. The aim is to do 100.

The purpose of this 100 Tiny Songs project is to lean harder into my niche as a songwriter. I recently had a mentor tell me that I was good at writing weird, observational little songs. This mentor told me it was what endeared her to my work. And it would be what endeared a lot of other people to me, too.

That wasn’t the first time I’d heard that opinion, but at the time I found it weird — I thought people preferred my slow, sad, acoustic stuff? My heartbreaks on train platforms and my little-too-personal lyrics?

No, it was my short songs about petting dogs and businessmen ordering steaks that had the “spark.”

I’ve always loved being funny and making strange things. When I was a kid I wrote songs about poisonous plants, yodelling goats and a big pop number about Santa Claus which sounded a lot like Culture Club’s ‘Karma Chameleon.’ When I started writing songs and gigging, I made upbeat stuff and a lot of the things I put on Bandcamp were little vignettes about my life, in the form of quirky little songs.

As the years went on, I started to think that I needed to go deeper, more serious, more heart-wrenching. People liked sad stuff. My voice sounded great when I was singing about rain. The holes in my guitar skills didn’t show when I played slower. And the producers who worked with me encouraged me to make the serious, sad, acoustic stuff. Their approval made me feel like this “emotional artist” personality was my true sound.

The problem with this is that so many artists in the acoustic singer-songwriter genre are making the same stuff. The thing that my mentor labelled as “slow self-analysis ballads.” I cringed to hear my songs put in that category, but I knew that it was partly true. I was conforming to a sound that was beautiful and easy, but it was everywhere. And although it was me, it wasn’t the most exciting thing about me.

As I grow older, I realise that the whole point of being an artist is to look outside yourself. To notice things about life. Of course our own perspectives and experiences are important — they’re what give our work it’s own personality and sound. But it really is about interacting with and responding to the real world, not just navel-gazing and hoping someone will join in with you.

Gloom is not my personal brand. I am going to Un-Gloom this year, in fact. Through the first third of this Tiny Song project I’ve realised that people like it when I make fun things. People like it when I share my sense of humour and my daily observations through my songs.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is:

YOU DON’T NEED TO MAKE SAD STUFF TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY.

Now, time to ungloom.