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kimberlybender3

Punching the clock

Right alongside the excitement of new tasty treats and glowing lanterns, is the equal but quieter joy of slowing down and creating space during this sabbatical. After several months of very stressful work before leaving the U.S., our time here has offered a pause that has opened up an expansive sense of time and space. Few, if any, meetings or responsibilities means no rushing, preparing, anticipating. Which means less yelling, arguing, offering the kids half affirming noises while multitasking on my phone.


In its place, we have time to get a better sense of what is desired in any given moment - a nap, a walk, a stretch, a book? We notice our senses and our needs. When a task doesn't go right - and many do not (it took us three attempts to mail a package last week) - instead of frustration, there is a new unfamiliar patience - we can try again tomorrow. A one hour MRT trip fits perfectly into a day with only one event scheduled. The leaving behind of that constrained-rushed-never-enoughness has been such a welcome gift. It has left me wondering how to take it home with me.


Coincidentally, the Taichung National Fine Arts Museum held an exhibit on Work. Thirteen artists from different generations and cultures shared their reflections on labour and work and how our social structures impact our modes of work. I haven't stopped thinking about it since.


One piece shows a 3-D model in a "child's pose" stretching her arms into a scanner that transforms her into a flat version of herself. Too close to home for someone who is on a lifelong quest for peace while spending the last three years on zoom.


A second piece shows videos of people turned into machines, making the audience (or at least me) question how we are part of a larger system of production. Whether we are spending our time truly creating or contributing or simply as a cog in someone else's profit machine.

The most powerful artwork was a piece by Taiwanese performance artist, Tehching Hsieh, who, in the 1980s, took a picture of himself punching a time clock every hour...every day...for an entire year. His images line every wall of a large room. His witness documents only133 missed clock-ins where he accidentally slept through this alarm. The enormity of the hours represented in the room alongside the symbolic punching into "work" was...a lot.

I am grateful for this pause - a chance to reconsider how we want to spend our hours and days and a chance to recognize just how much happier my nervous system and family feels in the spaciousness. - Kim

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