Dear Reader
I’ve always had a fraught relationship with time. I think many of us do. There’s just never enough of it, and if I think I had too little of it before, then having a baby has only exacerbated that feeling. I laugh when I remember how much time I used to spend on exercising before having a baby. True, it became something I did more of as the pandemic took hold of the world and we saw less of each other, as a way to try control something small within my orbit — adding on strength training to my runs, and following the workout Michael B Jordan did to get in shape for Creed, plus teaching myself how to do pull-ups and handstands helped fill the, well, time.
But now, training for a marathon sometimes feels like I’m stealing time — time I should, or want to, be spending with the baby. Or even could be spending doing those menial tasks that fall by the wayside, like getting my hair cut or deep-cleaning the apartment.
This past weekend, as I set out to do my really-long-run of training for the London Marathon — one in which I knew I’d be out on the streets for more than 2.5 hours — I thought about another thing I could be doing with that time: watching the new John Wick. Number 4 in the franchise had been getting rave reviews from my critic friends before it came out, and I really want to see it. But, dear reader, there just is very little time right now to fit in both going to the cinema to see an almost-3-hour film (along with the time factored in to get there) AND going on a 20-mile run. It really is a case of one or the other.
“What am I trying to prove?” I thought, while running that long run. I should be a in a cinema eating popcorn and watching Wick get his vengeance on. What am I trying to prove? Nothing — except to fulfill a goal I had before having the baby. A goal that shows I’m still the same person, even if I feel and look a little different.
I’ve made the choice to do this marathon and that means choosing to put time into it — for a few more weeks, at least. And it means waiting patiently for John Wick to hurry up and get himself on demand already!
Here are 5 things this mama would suggest spending some time on this weekend:
Listening to the new Nakhane album.
Celebrating Tracy Chapman’s birthday by re-watching this.
Watching A Thousand and One, starring Teyana Taylor, which is not 3 hours long, but its just under 2-hour runtime will take you through New York City, specifically Harlem, in the ‘90s, to tell a devastating story of gentrification, family ties and belonging that will leave you stunned.
Picking up an Anna May Wong quarter.
Getting stuck into the African Folklores Reimagined series on Netflix with UNESCO that aims to support the next generation of African filmmakers.
Thank you for reading!
Your neighbour
Nadia