The lark ascending

My watch conked out yesterday. The battery went flat. And I've been living a timewarped existence ever since. I'm very attached to my watch. Despite the fact that I have a clock in my kitchen, on my computer and mobile, have a church nearby that chimes the hour, I find comfort in knowing that the exact time is, almost literally, at my fingertips.

I'm a little obsessive with knowing what time it is at any given moment. I like to know when it's time to wake up. When it's time to take my babe for a walk. When it's time to prepare lunch. When it's time for my son to come home from school. When it's time to pick up my daughter from kindie. When it's time to go out. When it's time to go to bed. And without my watch, I have been a little lost.

Funny thing time is. Constantly moving forward, relentlessly, at breakneck speed. The minutes, hours, days, months and years, going, going, then gone. Jeremy Irons said “We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they're called memories. Some take us forward, they're called dreams.” I've been thinking quite intensely about both lately, but perhaps a bit more about the former. Just like my friend Ross, I have been thinking about two years in the past in particular - 1988 and 1989.

1988 was a significant year for me as it was my last year of school. And in the words of Dickens, it was the best of times and the worst of times. The best of times because I made some wonderful, lifelong friends and had some magical moments with them which I shall cherish all my life. It was also a kind of age of innocence - a worryfree existence with almost no responsibilities whatsoever, except for school. Which is why it was the worst of times. Because, as anyone who has completed school knows, your last year is your best, and worst - the unrelenting pressure and stress to get the best grades you can, finally finding out what you got for all your drudgery and then deciding what the hell you're going to do with the rest of your life. Not a pleasant experience. Oh yeah, that and unrequited love.

But 1989, now that was a very good year. If pressed, I would have to say my best so far. My first year at university. After having gone to Catholic schools all my life, the last 8 years of which were all-girls Catholic schools, I was now amidst Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Atheist, Vegan, Leftwing, Rightwing, Chickenwing people, as well as others of innumerable persuasions, cultures and beliefs. I was, in short, finally in the real world after having been confined in the parish closures for so long. It was, in effect, the year my voice broke, when the girl in me started turning into a woman. My eyes began opening wide, the parachute in my head that was wrapped up so long started to unravel, my ears began to hear sounds unheard before and my heart seemed to pump harder and faster than ever. And again, I met some amazing people, some of whom have remained my dearest friends.

And then I started thinking - what happened in the world during those two years? What other significant events occured outside my microcosmos? Here's a list that I found on Wiki:

The bicentenary of the settlement of Australia
Demonstrations in the then Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Hungary and other Eastern European countries begin
Poland legalises "Solidarity" and they win their first elections in Poland after 42 years of communism
Nato celebrates its 40th anniversary
Students protest in Tianamen Square
The Berlin Wall falls down
The Velvet Revolution takes place in the then Czeckoslovakia
Laurence Olivier, Diana Vreeland, Irving Berlin, Bette Davis, Samuel Beckett and Enzo Ferrari pass away
Seinfeld premieres on TV :)

Interesting that the dark walls of communism were falling in Eastern Europe the same year that the dark walls of my former life were falling around me, crumbling at my feet, leaving me with a beautiful vista, a vista of what life really was and what it could be. I saw the lark ascending. How I sometimes wish that time could stop its neverending grind and stand still for just a moment, so that I could watch it soar and sing again.