With a global pandemic, loss of the life we’re familiar with, and endless nightmares about the future, I can’t imagine the impact this year had on you. Yet this year pushed many of us to reflect on the ways this year had changed us forever.
I genuinely can’t remember most of what happened this year, but this fatigued body and dark under-eye circles I carry around with me remind me of its impact. Days and weeks seemed identical, and time ceased to exist. The only thing indicating a change of time was the sunrise followed by the sunset.
While physicists can define time mathematically, the impact seconds and days have on us, especially this year, differs from one person to another and can’t be limited to an equation. Our definitions of time and its meaning vary, and so do the ways we use to document it. Before announcing the Time Issue, I realized that my sense of time is limited to the beginning of an academic year and the end of another. And the way I personally document these changes don’t go beyond a few pages I started writing regularly five years ago, alongside the Memories feature on Snapchat.
I asked Ward artists to share the way they define time, and how they document it in the Time Issue. Some bake orange cakes that remind them of their grandparents, and some write poems about life-changing events. Some draw on sand, and some sculpt steel. I didn’t find one way to explain and measure time’s impact on them — I found various ways and media they use to describe the changes in their lives that time caused.
I share this issue with you hoping it gives you warmth this new year’s eve and to remind you that we all went through this year together, sharing its extreme fatigue, dark under-eye circles, and nightmares.
