WEEKEND MUSING: TIMEDear Usdan community: On one day in late April, a few people remarked to me that they could not understand where the prior two weeks had gone. Oddly, I felt the same: those two weeks had passed by me on fast forward. If there is anything to love about this quarantine, it might be the opportunity for us to rethink how we consider time. I recently returned to Alan Lightman’s compact novel Einstein’s Dreams. Each chapter opens with a different proposition about time which guides Einstein’s experience as he goes about his life in Vienna. Yesterday, the chapter called “10 June 1905” transplanted me to an appealing and alternative world: Suppose that time is not a quantity but a quality, like the luminescence of the night above the trees just when a rising moon has touched the treeline. Time exists but it cannot be measured. Take me to THAT world! Let time be a quality, not a quantity. I will gladly forego clocks, remove “To Do” lists that need to be completed today, obliterate the pressure so many of us put on our children to not waste time. As I write, I am trying to experience time as quality. Time looks like the small leaves opening on oak trees, leaves colored oddly yellow as they wait to turn green. Time sounds like hawks squawking. What would Usdan be like if time changed from a quantity, to a quality? What if there was no start date or end date, and Usdan was part of children’s lives all year ‘round? What if our children only used their senses to experience time – the same senses that they turn on when they work as artists – their vision, their hearing, their touch? This weekend, can we all gift our children the opportunity to experience time as a quality and not a quantity? Can we try it ourselves? I am going to attempt it. And if you do go for it, will you tell me what it was like for you and your family? With warmth, Lauren Brandt Schloss, Executive Director P.S. Here are some of the ways I am experiencing time as quality on the Usdan campus. Now more than ever we are using Amazon to get essentials. Did you know you could support Usdan by doing your usual shopping on Amazon Smile? Simply choose "Usdan Summer Camp for the Arts" as your supporting non-profit and Amazon will donate .5% of your order to camp. Looking for resources to stay creatively engaged at home? |