Melting Clocks and a Big Ego: Surrealist Reflections on The Passage of Time
This week I get really fricken introspective with the help of Salvador Dali, My brother Andrew, and Sandra Bullock. Read along to find out what I mean by that. February 13th
My paternal grandparents used to take me to the Art Institute of Chicago every Saturday. Granna and Dabs. Armed with a thick black drawing pad and a pack of sharpened pencils, I’d plant myself on the leather benches before towering paintings and just go at it. I never tried to recreate the paintings; I just used them as inspiration.
They were patient with me; they stood around the museum each week as I sketched. After the visit, they’d potentially take me to the gift shop, which was of course my favorite part. To get to this privilege, I had to be truly engaged with the art. I had to care. I had to have a favorite piece and a reason. My grandpa Dabs was intent on this.
These Saturdays at the Art Institute shaped me.
I first learned about Surrealism in middle school from our art teacher Mrs. Bodnarsky, with her thick Eastern European accent. There was a rumor that she was on “What Not to Wear” and it’s all that’s stuck with me about her. That, and the fact that her son would have a lot of nose bleeds during school assemblies. Equal parts tragic and funny.
This week, I have found myself drawn to Salvador Dali's painting, “The Persistence of Memory,” as I am struck by the paradox of time - racing weeks and dragging days. Dali's melting clocks brilliantly portray this fluidity of time, revealing how dreams can reshape both time and memory, transporting us to an alternate world.
I had spent the past three nights in Oakland, CA visiting my older brother Andrew and my Dad meeting us there. But this essay isn’t about my Dad, so don’t get too invested in his presence.
The fact is, seeing Andrew got me into this whole mental mess because I really love the guy and I never see him. I think I see my brother an average of 10 days a year.
I thought about how much time had passed since I last saw him. How fast it’s all passing. How we approach the future differently.
It was all so bittersweet. Having lived on the East Coast for the past 6 years and with COVID, I hadn’t gotten the chance to visit Andrew, who has lived in Oakland for over 4 years now. Maybe 5. And now he’s waiting on law school, so in May, he will be moving out of the Bay. It was saddening to see his beautiful life there and be so utterly charmed by San Fransisco, only to know I probably can’t visit again before he leaves.
I’m in a really strange place in life. This Winter Sabbatical ends in 2 and a half months, and I don’t know what comes next.
My brother drove me to the San Fransisco airport on Monday. I was staring out the window, nostalgic for a place I barely knew. And while his situation is very different than mine, there was a kinship. We are both stuck in the unknown.
I asked him, “When can I see you next?” and he shrugged, “Maybe July?” I asked him to play Tracy Chapman.
Andrew turned her on and remarked that she’d gone to Tufts. I thought: how the hell had it already been 4 years since he’d graduated from there?
Time feels fluid to me.
I've always been fascinated by memory and time. To start, I lack a sense of it passing; I can't gauge it. To compensate, I set timers on my phone for each task, right from the moment I wake to the moment of slumber.
I made a short film 4 years ago on the idea of memories as I got hung up on the fact that I was forgetting a lot of my life. I wanted to capture life’s most mundane moments, the ones we would forget in 5 or 10 years. The film had no clear narrative, just raw footage of life organized by different moods and short moments, laughing, “getting a tattoo,” talking with your friends, and doing things that scare you. It is titled, “5 Years: A Film Celebrating The Mundane.” Linked here:
Andrew and I have completely different relationships with time. He is rigid and always punctual. He is deeply rooted in reality, which as it turns out, can be a bummer - sorry to say - but it’s why I love the timely guy! He’s dependable!
On the other hand, I'm terrible at understanding time. Picture Travis Kelsey attempting drag makeup—that's me. I easily lose track of time; I might find myself immersed in writing a script for six hours. Impatiently waiting for food, even three minutes can feel like an eternity.
The first day I got to the Bay, after our lunch, he gave me a tour of his building and we caught up. We were sitting in his gorgeous gentrification-building backyard, heated by his artificial fireplace and a view of “Avocado Toasty,” a restaurant that exists in a shipping container. Side note: If you ever find yourself being served an avocado toast by a person wearing a mask on a shipping container, it’s fucking weird! You’re like, this is so 2024, why are we obsessed with mixing upscale eating with poverty-chic? It’s weird. Let’s say we tried it and moved on. It’s like eating caviar out of a dirty Doc Martin. Anyways…
Andrew was asking me about my plans in life. I told him: I will be a comedian. I will create a TV show. And I will be wildly successful. I am certain of it. And I’ve told him this before.
And he, being the grim reaper of reality, armed with a scythe of practicality and a silk black hood, asks me, “What is your backup plan?”
I was taken aback by this question, really offended even. HOW RUDE! I took a beat.
But it was a classic older sibling inquiry, so I accepted it. I told him, “I don’t really have one.” A moment of pure silence fell upon the artificial fireplace and drifted into the faux LED flames. “Maybe marketing. Or I’ll teach.” As soon as I said it, I hated it. I didn’t believe it and he didn’t believe me.
Am I crazy? I don’t want to mentally prepare for a life short of my dreams. I sound like such an annoying Gen-Z’r right now, whining about this. “I want to be successful now Daddy!” (Veruca Salt's voice).
I fear that a backup plan would only misalign me with the reality I am destined to have. Since I was a child, I’d say, “If things don’t go my way in life, I’m moving off the grid to live near the beach.” It was an all-or-nothing mindset. No HBO Special? Time to live in a hut and eat mangos all day. Give me the bamboo! I’d be chilling. Every other year on my birthday I slip in an old tape of me doing standup in New York City right before I quit for life… I shed a single tear. But deep down I know it is for the best. I take out the tape and walk slowly to the shore for my daily walk. I’m tan and look seven years younger than my age.
Woah there!!! What just happened? Did I accidentally slip into a sad melancholic daydream? Yes.
It’s extreme, I know. This all-or-nothing mindset.
Such begs the question, what does success look like to me? Is it completely rooted in shallow things such as recognition and wealth?
It isn’t not rooted in these things.
I kid.
What I really want is simple. I want to just make people laugh. I want to help a few people feel more seen; I want to fall in love; and I want like 3 more fur coats. That is it. Simple. If I am doing most of that stuff in ten years from now then I am good.
If getting fired from a corporate job taught me anything, it was that I’m not good at a lot of stuff. It feels very brave to admit that. So why not go for the thing I feel good at, even if the odds aren’t in my favor? That’s my logic.
SOO tying it all into Salvador Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory,” it seems this old soldier wasn’t so different than me. Dali was ambitious and hyper-focused on his lasting mark on the world. He was vain as they come, baby! His painting dramatically depicts an abstract portrayal of himself with a melting clock upon him. Very diva! I think we would’ve gotten along very well.
He concluded that life is fleeting, and after death, all that endures is your memory and this distorted recollection of who you were.
Aha. Surrealism. The art form that laughs at reality.
What a disservice I do myself, fixating on all these hypothetical time stamps.
I need to go on tour within five years; I need to have a TV show within ten years; I need to get married by 34; I need to have a book before 55.
It’s exhausting!
How much of my life am I wasting obsessing over what’s next?
To a degree, I don’t really have a choice. I am in a temporary job. I need to figure out what the next chapter looks like. Right now, I do not know.
Above all, I can’t seem to separate envisioning success from an unhealthy amount of pressure. I wonder if Romulus and Remus felt anxiety when creating Rome.
There is a surrealist component to my life right now. It can feel dystopian out here, though not necessarily in a bad way, it’s just so unlike my entire life beforehand.
Daily moments skiing the mountain will forever remain between me and the earth.
Walking through a snow-covered golf course to my apartment.
Morning coffees at a homely diner before I start my shift at work.
All these moments come and go like I’m holding a balloon, briefly known so well and now released, vanished into the clouds. This, I believe, is the heart of Dali’s painting. Time is turbulant. Time is lawless. Time is illogical.
I can’t control the speed of time, as much as I can’t control my success. I can’t control the things I will inevitably forget. I can’t control my grandparents getting older and my parents aging. I can’t control at which point my cheekbones will reach their peak level of sharpness; though I hope it’s at 40.
And I suppose there is some morbid solace in knowing that no matter how wildly successful I become, no matter what I will just be a memory one day.
If I accept what I can’t control in both the immediate and grand scheme of life, perhaps I will be able to sit more comfortably in the present.
Maybe my relationship with time can become more like Sandra Bullock in ‘Oceans 8’ - cool, unemotional, forging ahead - rather than Sandra Bullock in ‘Gravity,’ scared, aggravating to watch, and controlling as fuck.
I can only hope.
But for now, I will take a page from Dali’s book and surrender the constant fixation on what is next, finding solace in the present moment.