I cut a cartoon from the Guardian over twenty years ago, drawn by Steven Appleby, called The Escalator of Life. At the time, in my early forties, it struck a nerve. Life felt as though it was rushing past too quickly, decades disappearing before I’d had a chance to settle into them.
Back then, I longed to slow things down. And, in many ways, I have. Over the last twenty years I’ve filled my life with variety and learning — French lessons that stretched across a decade, art classes I returned to nine years ago, relief printing that has absorbed me for the last three. Fifteen years of sailing dinghies and even crossing the Atlantic. Six years as a town councillor. Swim coaching that’s expanded from club teaching to performance coaching, para, and even water polo. I write, I read, I cook, I garden, I survey ancient trees.
It’s not that life has become any less full — it’s that I’ve found ways of making it fuller. And I’ve discovered something important: learning and novelty slow time down. Days lengthen when I’m engaged. Months stretch out when I’m immersed in something new. This September, with coaching commitments that left me feeling as though I were living an “eleven-day week,” seemed to last forever. Too full, perhaps — and my body reminded me of that when I ended up in A&E with what I thought might be a mini-stroke but turned out to be a migraine brought on by overhydration and lack of electrolytes. Lesson learned.
Which brings me back to that cartoon. In it, the terrified rider of the escalator is told to “press the emergency stop button.” I used to wish such a button really existed — a way to step off the rush of time. These days, I imagine something more like a dial in my head: turn it to slow down the rich, meaningful experiences I want to savour, or to fast-forward through the duller patches.
And then there’s the runner — the figure sprinting up the escalator while the dreamer cries for help. Back when I first saw it, I envied that vitality, that ease. Now I recognise him as a part of myself. Like Phil Connors at the end of Groundhog Day, I’ve found ways of living each day as if it matters, filling it with art, coaching, trees, writing, song, and enthusiasm. If someone were to look at me and think, “How does he keep all that going?” — I’d be quietly pleased.
The escalator dream also makes a final point: when the machine stops, the only way is to walk. And that, I think, is the real truth. It matters to make the effort. It matters to walk, to climb, to use the body and all its senses. Time doesn’t have to carry me along at its speed. I can set my own pace.
That old cartoon once felt like a warning. Now it feels like a reminder — to keep creating novelty, to keep turning the dial, and to keep walking.
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