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What kind of time is this?



The making sense of time chronicles roll on.  My son has declared more than once this week that he thinks we are running late.  When I ask him how he knows this (is it the slant of the light? his insistent internal clock?) he states that he checked the time on the microwave before we left.

"What kind of time is this?" he asks.  What number, what happens now?

Right now time is still the only time there is but there is evidence that it is losing ground to another "kind of time" which he hears other people discuss, adjust and regulate.  It is not yet something tangible that he can hold in his hand and line other things up against.  Even though the day has a linear progression from morning snack to afternoon snack and bedtime snack, time, expressed as a number, which can be measured against other these things is still vague but slowly and surely taking hold.

He  noticed a calendar last night and wanted to know what comes next.  Looking at a clock or a calendar was once like showing him photos in an album from a trip that we took before he was born.    Now, it is like something he has seen on t.v. or in a dream.  Something he has seen with his own eyes but does not yet fully understand how it relates to him.

What kind of time is this? Is this preschool time? Is this candy store time? Is it bedtime?  Is this stay at home with mama and daddy time?  What kind of time is this?




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  1. introphoto3/28/2012 6:39 am

    I love this, and it is something I have never really thought about. How we become a part of the time continuum.... I guess it does, slowly, take hold of us...

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