Description

By Kelly Brown

ISBN: 9781847477736
Published: 2008
Pages: 94
Key Themes: fiction, unhappiness, mental health treatment and abuse, philospophy

Description

Primo Levi and his book the drowned and the saved was the starting point for my thinking for The metaphysical shapes of time. Many writers commentated that his survival became his suffering, with the constant why me. I was sure if I believed but I wanted to look at survival as offering us possibility. They say time is a healer, but I have found that memories never let you forget, and that time spins us back to moments of remembrance. What shape is time, is it a circle or a line? When September encroaches and we remember the September when we loved, or losses, the colours of the leaves, the hiss of the wind as it blows against those same leaves. What sound is the wind, is it a howl, a curl or a hiss? Our minds battle to understand whether time is circular or linear, September comes around again and again, each laying on top of the other in a richness that linear time has no awareness of, yet we can never step on the same path again, the actual now is never the same, there is the added sense of knowing.

About the Author

Kelly is a philosopher, artist and writer. She writes articles, fiction, poetry and created photography and performances about the metaphysical aspects of existence, particularly space and time. Kelly studied philosophy at Middlesex in 1989 to 92 with Jonathan Ree and specialised in European philosophy and phenomenology. Kelly ten spent six years working with people looking for a practical application to life. In 1998 Kelly had a nervous breakdown and this had both positive and negative aspects. Kelly refers to it as her spiritual break, in the way that Joni Mitchell refers to her Blue album. Positively it allowed Kelly to find like minded people through going to Hospital. The negative aspects relate to how sadness and loss are pathologised as illness. Kellys book the metaphysical shapes of time deals with the negative aspects, as the main character finds himself in hospital just for loss and sadness. More positively however Kelly was able to gain an MA in Fine art, specialising in photography and performances. This was cathartic but also a way of tackingly how lonely and isolating an activity writing can be. Art is much more sociable and looking at something is so much more accessible than writing, something that you can get an immediate response to. The metaphysical shapes of time started at Lynne Claytons writing workshop in 2004, a writing group specifically for people who have experienced mental distress. It helped Kelly to deal with the darkness that inhabited her mind, questions such as why so much cruelty?