Personal Essay

Time does not pass in my house on the hill

My hair does not grey, nor the lines on my face grow deeper.

The author in her garden (photo by author)

I live in a house on a hill where time does not pass. Seasons come and go in the evergreen native bush outside our windows. Flat waxy leaves bounce above the city splayed out below: their colour is what boxes of crayons would universally agree constitute the stereotypical “green”.

But there are no crayons here, in this country. Just oil pastels. My childhood familiars a distant memory.

Birds reliably greet the dawn and dusk with a chorus that I try to block at night by smooshing a pillow against my ear. Unpoetic, but true. Their songs also mark the end of the rains we get so regularly. Day after day, season after season, whether the sun rises at 5 or after 8, whether it showers in frequent bursts or not at all, these avians greet the flow of nature. Surely the birds themselves change, grow older, have chicks, die — but the constancy of their companionship blurs with the timelessness of my view — and even the sounds of my flitting, whirring feathered friends become proof that time does not pass, for nothing of substance changes.

The ocean surf lulls softly in the distance. In our house, it is only from my room that it is audible. A miracle, really…