Today is the birthdate of both my sister and my belle-mère. When I was out in the woods, back in 2010, I had already considered the notion of ghost dates, those points on the calendar which once meant something. Perhaps the birthday of a friend you are no longer in touch with, or an anniversary with a partner from whom you’ve since separated.
There is a section in my journal from this week, thirteen years ago, about this, about collecting ghost dates but, strangely, I never considered the idea of future ghost dates. Seeing as this premise lays behind arguably the second most famous Christmas tale of all time, the idea of ghosts of the future was not one I thought of.
I wonder how many more dates will become important in my life, dates I cannot predict, replacing those which slowly fade from memory.
The longer I stayed in the woods, the deeper my thinking went, as though I was rid of the background noise society brings, allowing me to process and work on subjects beyond those I had previously investigated, buried deeper and drowned out.
This week was not all good, however. I was sick, very sick, and at the start of the week, it was touch and go as to whether I would need to leave, perhaps even be rescued by friends willing to drive for eight or more hours up to Scotland to save me.
My shelter was pretty much complete by this point of my adventure, at least on the outside.
Read more at the introduction, and see Week One, Week Two, Week Three, Week Four, Week Five, Week Six, Week Seven and Week Eight, if you wish to catch up.
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I am increasingly sure I need to put forward a book proposal, based on this limited series, with lots of extra things added in. If there are any questions you have about A Fall in Time, do let me know and I shall do my best to answer them.
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Every now and then, I spend some time thinking about why a date seems so important, only to eventually reassure myself there is nothing in my timeline to date that marks it particularly. Perhaps I should start a Future Ghost Date Diary, noting these instances, and saving them for when those missing jigsaw pieces finally click into place.
I love the idea of ghost dates, I’ve never thought about it that way before