Two Things Pass in Between - Time and Life

As of late, what brings me running to my literary theory classes is my professor. Like most women, she has an amazing smile, a soft voice, hair of great flare, and an almost magical presence that welcomes even the departmental cat into the whitewashed chambers of a department that has mostly failed to bring us running to literary theory classes in the morning - as of yet. 

There is a strange relatability I find with theory lesson in life sometimes, all thanks to this professor who brings both the human and the cat under the same roof in her attempt to teach us what forms the Modern. The word tugs at me with its funny accent and deliberate imageries reminding how I had passed 18 years of my life studying in a school literally named 'Modern School'. I wonder sitting in class if I might have been really ahead of my time, holding an ID at the age of four, walking into whitewashed chambers that literally had Modern written on all its walls? The cat yawns. 

As my professor continues to talk on margins and marginalities, my friend takes my hand to place it on her lap and caressing gently with her fingers. I remember of her lover's argument on how 'social sciences' are words of oxymoron, never meaning anything in the existence of reality. It gets me tired to listen on some days, harder to talk, but in this class, the strokes on my hand and the professor's dainty voice of rebellion and the cat's yawns fulfill me. Perhaps the AC too. 

I pushed myself out of my house today, hoping for a routine that didn't just look like sitting at a desk, eyes glued to the laptop screen, juggling through e-copies of books, stacks of movie recommendations, listening to recordings of old class lectures, and doom scrolling social media (the phone is kept away intentionally for better concentration at work). In the mean time, two things pass - time and life. 

The distance between my house and my grandparents has remained the same. Yet, life's progress with the progressively growing interest in me toward literary theory classes has only increased this distance. The cat in the classroom hence sees me more than them, and I count its yawns each time knowing time has been passing, without knowing if my grandparents even yawn anymore. My house and my home have been growing far lately. I fail to meet midway on this road as I attempt to not fail knowing what's Modernity, in class.   

It is also excruciatingly painful, but mostly strange, when waking up finds you not your sister, not mother, not father in the same house as you. They have left, in their vicarious search for modernity, as they know too that two things have passed in between - time and life. The lectures remain, the cat purrs in technical measures. An overflow of the brain could perhaps save me both minutes and overbeaten heartbeat.