“Hi! My name is Nao, and I am a time being. Do you know what a time being is? Well, if you give me a moment, I will tell you.” ~ the first lines of Ruth Ozeki’s “A Tale for the Time Being.”
After listening to Ruth Ozeki last Wednesday night, I fully understand what it means to be a time being. You’re a time being. I’m a time being. We all are time beings and we share this wonderful life for the time being. But, first, let me give you some background.
Ruth Ozeki is the author of the novel which was chosen as the 2015 Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Community Read. I had not read the book, but had heard spectacular reviews and knew that she was not only an author, but a Zen Buddhist priest. Since I’m currently writing a story myself about Buddhism, I was interested to hear if she would touch on that aspect of her life.
There on the stage of the Rackham Auditorium, Ozeki stepped out and spent five minutes, thanking so sincerely the committee members for choosing her book. She said that she couldn’t imagine being in their position, having to read so many incredible books and knowing that a choice must alternately be made. Her gratefulness was admirable and continued throughout the talk. She then talked about public libraries and their “magical spell,” which many of the audience members, including myself, had found themselves as little ones. Although the topic itself did not have relevance to her novel, she delved into her own past job as a library page, where she would keep a notepad on her trolley and write down story ideas as she combed the shelves. These personal stories humanized her and made her seem like a real person, because her stories were my stories. I think it is easy to put successful people on an untouchable pedestal, where we think, “No way can I ever get where they are.” But really, they came from where we are. And it’s stories like these that give us hope.
Next, Ozeki transformed into a philosophical physicist and began a lecture on time. She taught us one of her favorite Japanese words, “uji.” Uji can both be translated as ‘time being’ and ‘being time.’ She pointed out that this duality creates instability. Depending on the emphasis, you could say “time being” which connotes temporariness. But if you say, “time being,” it is like you are speaking of a being of time, such as an alien or a living entity. I fell in love with this image of “time beings.” For the rest of the talk, Ozeki called us, her audience, “time beings,” which was both lovely and made me think closer about what that actually means.
After explaining a bit about the main character Nao (a linguistic pun on the word “now”) and a humble confession that this final novel is the sixth version of her original draft, Ozeki recognized that novels themselves are time-beings. When one writes a draft, random factors of the time being influence the prose effortlessly. For example, she had written her novel in a pre-Fukashima Disaster time. She realized that the events and emotions of her novel were no longer relevant in a post-Fukashima time. As a writer who lives in Revisionland most of my days, it comforted me to hear that Ozeki had to wrestle with Time and redo her story to get back in step.
The last moments of her talk was actually silent. She led the audience on a meditation, a moment of self-awareness to put us all back in step with time. We too often feel like we are chasing time. We are quick to materialize time as an object. We’re always behind schedule, ahead of time, physically on time, spending it, keeping it, wasting it. This silent meditation let us just be in time with no worries about what to do with it, other than to exist. For me, time itself felt like it slowed down. Ozeki suggested that before sitting down to work, you should sit in silent peace for about ten minutes. Release any thoughts and be completely present.
Even though I hadn’t read the book (it’s on my list for Spring Break!), Ozeki made her talk accessible to everyone. She taught us to be more appreciative of life, of time, and to simply be the lovely time being who we are.
