movingthemind
  • Introduction
  • Dance
  • Writing
  • Blog
  • Links
  • Contact

Time

15/12/2013

1 Comment

 
Time is a wealth of change, but the clock in its parody makes it mere change and no wealth - Tagore.

We were sitting round the table, a little drunk, wondering what the time was, so we all guessed. Two of us were accurate within minutes, and I was spot on, which led to talk of the internal body-clock.  I’m always either close within a few minutes, or wildly out.  This implies a nervous, uptight disposition – an inability to relax, someone had heard. I don’t know about that, but we got to talking about whether or not animals have a sense of time. The cat Domino seems pretty clueless, but every dog I’ve lived with has livened up on
the dot of five o clock feeding time, with much confusion when the clocks go forward or back. 

Today, visiting Haddon Hall, we heard about the Turnspit Dogs – short, muscular animals, with strong legs and much stamina, bred to turn the meat spit over the kitchen fire by running for hours in a wheel – dog power. They were described as ugly, unhappy looking creatures. Poor things, why wouldn’t they be miserable, trundling round and round, so close to the delicious scent of forbidden food? These dogs if not relieved when their shift was up, would leap down from the wheel and force their dog companions to take
their place. 

Tonight I was rehearsing songs for a concert, and making the same mistakes with rhythm again and again, getting more frustrated and inaccurate the harder I tried. I thought how a sense of rhythm and a sense
of time are different. But how would I describe that difference – sound and silence, movement and stillness, breath? What is time anyway?
With that the mind spins off, and I call it a day.

Picture
See the Turnspit Dog running in the wheel, with a ham hanging on either side of it.
1 Comment
DAVID SELZER link
7/1/2014 11:02:18 pm

Thank you for the splendid quote from Tagore - and sharing the horrors of the Turnspit Dogs.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Tricia Durdey dances, writes, and teaches Pilates.

    Archives

    October 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    February 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013

    RSS Feed