Time shifts. Breaks itself in half like a stick. Things change. Without our intervention, without our consent, without our understanding, without us altogether. At best we are able to recognize the alteration. To look up and realize today is wearing a red dress instead of a yellow one and has taken off the hat we were so sick of seeing. The stick breaks, we sense the ripple of motion down our skin, like a hurricane in another country.

The French, I am told, make no distinction between time and space. They live at four o’clock and dine in the bedroom.