Maybe some days I get a little closer than on others to being a little more comfortable with time being so spectacularly out of my hands, with the idea of managing it, making it, saving it somehow, all being one big dream. But most days still find me attempting that dream of capturing it, bottling it, making it work to my whims.

Jack Kornfield once said “the problem is you think you have time”. I wish I could tell him that actually, my problem is knowing I very much do not, a knowledge that I know is shared in many and various ways by so many other Black women and genderqueer folk, and many others who are marginalised. Our access to and allotted portions of time are cut short, whether due to the greater amounts we have to spend on just attempting to live and have our needs met in a world that is structured not to cater to us, or due, somewhat relatedly, to the ways in which our lifespans are affected by greater degrees of trauma and stress and withheld care when we are unwell.

Michael McLeod, filmmaker and teacher, recently told me the filmmaker Arthur Jafa spoke of Black people as having to move “at the tempo of emergency”. I never actually intended for this post to focus on that often enforced haste. I didn’t intend to dwell, today, on the lack of time and the difficulty of slowing down. So instead I’m going to allow myself the luxury of time to rewatch the scene, maybe even watch the whole film. I’ll allow myself to dream of saving time in a bottle, and spending it as I wish.