Naomi Emanuelle

What is 500 years?
And how do we count it?
Do we count it as one hefty bulk? Do we count it as 5 100’s?
As 50 10’s?
Or do we count it as 500 1’s?
How about 1,000 0.5’s? Or 2,000 0.25’s?
There are so many ways to count 500, in fact, it could take forever.
We can go on and count until infinity or we can ask ourselves,
“What is it we were counting again?”
What is 500 years?
And how do we count it?
Well, for starters,
500 years is, well, 500 years.
And if a year has 52 weeks,
500 years would be about 26,000 weeks
But if we were to count it by days,
500 years would be around 182,500 days.
And those are a lot of days and weeks.
But what is it we were counting again?
Is it the number of days, weeks, and years? Or is it something else?
What is 500 years?
And how do we count it?
Do we count its value in numbers?
Do we count its value in time?
Or do we count its value in how it changed a nation within a given period of time?
Do we count 500 years by the time that passed?
Or do we count 500 years by how different we are now compared to the past?
I counted 500 years by drawing 500 marks. While each mark represents a year,
it also represents the struggles, triumphs, and changes embedded within that year.
This is how I count 500 years. Yours may be different.
And while 500 years is 500 years, 500 years isn’t really just 500 years.
So,
What is 500 years?
And how do we make it count?