time chute

it's not about the job it's about everything else

Recently, I had a dream that I was in some kind of warehouse. There were catwalks and pipes crossing every surface, making me feel like I was living in a pattern. I joined a circle of people all standing in a big room like a silo. They were preparing a ritual to open what I understood to be the ‘time chute.’ This was a metaphysical chute that was going to connect this moment in the ‘past’ to a moment in the ‘future’ – for some reason this was the year 2086. As we stood there chanting I could feel rather than see this chute manifest into existence. It was like another floor had formed above us, and there was another group of people also standing in a circle, looking down at us, at the bottom of the chute, in the past. We couldn’t see the people overhead, but they had a perfectly clear view of us.

Last week I had my least favorite pairings of shifts – a closing shift on Saturday and then an opening shift on Sunday. We have to-do lists that we fill out each shift as a way to communicate with the next workers what still needs to be done. As it was me, and then me again, there was nothing I needed to say. Except I stood in the kitchen with the fluorescent tube light flickering and wrote ‘good morning’ on the sheet. As I did this, I imagined very clearly the future version of myself that would come in and stand in the same place and look at these words that I had written. This future version of myself would not only see it but know that it was there waiting, this salutation from myself. I closed my eyes and let myself think about it. I actually did feel something. It was a weird sensation, picturing this other version of myself that was literally already there. But I couldn’t see this other person, this other me. Not physically, at least.

After Sunday, my week mellowed out, as it usually does. I worked on Monday, and then I had days off. On Wednesday I got a message from one of the upper management people asking if the whole team could meet Friday morning. On Friday morning we were told that my cafe is closing and we are all being let go.

I have worked at this cafe for almost four years. Next month it will be done. I am confronted with a feeling of time slippage, remembering the person I was when I started. The cafe has been in the same place — the same walls, the same geographical location; so many versions of myself have walked through its doors. While everything in my life grew and changed, I came to this cafe, clocked in, did my best. And steadily I got older. And time passed. And I learned things.

I am almost twenty-eight, about to stand on the other side of the chute.

After I got the news I took the ferry to Suomenlinna. It is a familiar pilgrimage to me. I make it whenever I sense that I am on the cusp of something. The island, in this way, is a time chute too. Except it is not the bottom or top – it is in the middle, that part that neither past nor future version of myself can see.

It was a very sunny day. I shrugged off the tourist crowds and followed my own compass. I found my way to the coast and carefully scuttled down to the beach. The Baltic opened up, a stretch of sea and sky that always makes me feel like I’m standing at the edge of the world. I came here as a tourist in 2019, almost exactly to the day, and it was completely gray and there was snow on everything. Now the snow has almost entirely melted, but there is still ice crusted around the shore. I took off my headphones and listened to the curious layered sounds of the tide rolling over the stones, melting the ice, the ice cracking and swirling out to sea. Absently, I threw a rock toward the ice. And then I realized that it felt good so I threw another. And then I was throwing rocks as hard as I could. The sea can take it, I heard in my head, and I threw the rocks harder. When I left some time later, there were stones littered on the ice like gravestones. My arm hurt a little.

On the ferry back to the mainland I sat shoulder to shoulder with all the tourists. So many languages moved past me. I thought about how this had been me, on this same ferry, all those years ago. Watching the ice water swish past the windows, gently bewildered, no attachment to this place. Now here I was, on the exact same boat with the exact same view, and everything in my life has changed. Inside I am mourning a job that I had for four years in this city. But if I would have spoken to anyone around me they would likely assume that I was a tourist too.

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This is a bit of a melancholic newsletter, but rest assured, I am fine. Just feeling a bit existential, as is natural when a major life chapter ends. I will be writing a longer post about my experiences at this cafe, but for now, I am just doing some thinking.

Take care,

Sidney