Much of life seems to be about waiting, a state of anticipation, one black shoe towards the next. Just think of your local grade twelves with contagious cases of senioritis blamed on the glimpse of adulthood (argh, the dreadful sweatpants under kilts!) - as if we haven't become accustomed enough with ailments in the past feu years. Holding onto the end of high school myself, the label of a new year carries more weight than it has in the past ("22" is the fabled final number that has appeared beside my email since grade four). It means a new school and a new stage in my life; the passing of time is something that's been "[percolating]" in my mind (as Fiona Apple would say). Here's how I'm trying to understand Time now...

Reaching the 8:35am start, the 5:30pm debate class after school, the ill-fated 12:00am deadline, and so on, it's as if instead of the event, I wait for Time itself. I tend to dismiss the conceptual meaning of Time. The simplistic numerals distract me from Time's deeper waters. Time passing is commonly alluded to with the image of water flowing, a stream or river; it's illusory and suffocating to ponder for long. Often, I find myself reluctantly grateful for the diversion of its guising numbers as the lack of control in the maelstrom of Time leaves me with raw, bitten nails - it's something I can't quite understand.

Perhaps, that's why we attempt to comprehend time through the water metaphor. In an essay titled "The Sea Close By," by the French philosopher Albert Camus, the protagonist explains his perpetual state of "waiting" in tangent with his seaside childhood memories. The character is suffering from agony after years upon years of waiting in a self-proclaimed "exile," with perhaps the only companion being the swish and swash of the ocean. As we age, we revert into infantile patterns "sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste" (as Shakespeare described in "All the world's a stage"), just like how underwater noises muffle, make a scream a mere nudge, emotions are suppressed. Both contain a lack of control, a mnemonic remembrance of juvenile helplessness, when hopelessness, or Camus' "desperation" were unknown feelings. Emotions are like primary colours during primary years. Red, blue, green; happy, sad, mad.

Now, sorry for wasting your seconds (or minutes, if you take careful time when reading) with the ramble above, I'm sure you've been waiting to meet the lady in the portrait, Awaiting his return, by William Ladd Taylor, or at least it's rude to keep her waiting! She, the nameless woman whose draped robes taper like a waterfall. Blue is the main undertone of the painting, returning me to the sense of water. Little is known about the piece beyond assumption, so assume I will do. Ironically, for a piece about waiting there is no listed date of its creation. The artist, William Ladd Taylor, was American born and raised, and lived from 1854 to 1926, so it was likely completed around the Edwardian era.

But why would Taylor paint this? What was (as we have heard many times in our English classrooms) his authorial intent? I believe understanding Taylor's turn-of-the-century social climate will guide us towards an answer. During this period, there was a burgeoning public fascination with the concepts of "time," "space," and "relatively" which a 1926 article from The New York Times, attributes to strides in science by prolific thinkers, like Albert Einstein. This phenomenon is often recognized as modernism, with participating styles, like futurism, and people, like Pablo Picasso, pushing art into the future's frame. Yet, the theme of Taylor's painting is distinctly traditional. The woman awaits for him, who may presume, is a romantic partner. This gives the sense that she has been dabbling around the house, perhaps cleaning or practising the lute leaning against the wall behind her while he was out breadwinning. Throughout it all she has been waiting for him, at the whim of him.

However, what I find consolatory about the piece is that her gaze appears to not be looking directly out the window. Rather it seems that maybe she felt she had to wait for him, so she perched by the stained-glass and gave a peek. But in the passage of time, she grew distracted, and her imagination moved to the flow of the curtains (where she seems to be looking), admiring their folds or ghostly fabric. A time that Taylor diagnosed for someone else, for him, became time for her; her mind, her exploration. In which case, the title holds the irony. Whether Taylor was purposeful in this act or not, a seventeen year-old has created this (mis?)truth a century later.

In my passage of time, I hope to do the same. I resent becoming Camus character who lets himself wait for years in suffering, the child who fears seconds and minute, or the woman who becomes a clock. I want to be friends with time, to not shiver at its uncontrollable concept. As the woman in Taylor's portrait did, instead of letting the hours dictate me, I want to dictate my hours.