Time stretches out in front of us, but there is never enough of it and you simply cannot borrow, buy, or make more. In Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock, Jenny Odell (acclaimed for her prior book How to Do Nothing) shows how the anguish we often feel about the passage of time is inexorably linked not just to ongoing social injustices but also to existential anxiety, and a dangerous sense of hopelessness.

When the pandemic hit and she was marooned in Los Angeles, Maddalena Bearzi encountered her own struggles with hopelessness and a new way of spending time. Unable to study marine animals during the early days of lockdown, she turned inward, focusing her considerable powers of observation on the squirrels, possums, wasps, and coyotes in her neighborhood. She collects those observations in Stranded: Finding Nature in Uncertain Times. Both Bearzi and Odell extol the value of slowing down and observing deeply—an exercise Odell dubs “unfreezing something in time.” “Pick a point in space,” she writes, “a branch, a yard, a sidewalk square . . . and simply keep watch. A story is being written there.”

Moderated by Alexis Madrigal (host of KQED’s Forum), this session will elicit both deep noticing and profound reflection. If you’re ready for a more humane, responsive way of living, find the time to join us for this session.