Quote of the day

There is this little fishing village on the coast of Mexico that I once visited for about six months. There, far removed from the rush of urban life, where few homes even have electricity, time is not an “exact” affair, as it is in our culture, measured in minutes and seconds – it is a “more or less.” You arrange to meet some people for dinner, for example, but no one mentions time. It is simply understood that “more or less” about the time the sun goes down, you will all meet in the general vicinity of a particular place. No one has watches, or if they do, you never see them wearing one. Seldom do you see a clock hanging on a wall in any public place. Businesses function, like everything else, opening “more or less” around mid-morning. If you go to the store and it isn’t open yet, you take a seat outside, perhaps under the shade of a tree, and you wait; otherwise, you leave and come back later. Similarly, the buses leading in and out to the main highway and connecting to the larger town, run early morning, mid-day and late afternoon. If you are willing to go and sit by the roadside long enough, you are sure to catch one. Otherwise, if you feel you need to arrive at a specific time, you can simply take the footpath which is about a forty-five minute walk. No one complains about this. No one every utters the words “inefficiency” or “timeliness.” No one expects anything to happen at any “specific” time, and yet there is a certain rhythm to life that all who live there seem to comprehend and respect. In short, everything functions, everything works – life goes on, even in absence of clocks and alarms.

When I first arrived in this village, for about the first week, I felt I had found paradise. Then, for the next month, I thought I was in hell. It was a struggle for me to adjust to a life that seemed to me to be occurring outside of time. Not only did no one seem to know what time it was, they didn’t care! When I would ask what time it was or even mention time as a specific, they would look at me like I had lost my mind, as though the whole subject of time were utterly irrelevant. Eventually I adjusted to this and even began to admire and enjoy it. There was no need to rush to get anywhere; it was okay to take one’s time in doing something or in getting somewhere. It was even okay to allow oneself to become distracted and “lose” an hour or two. No one would notice, no one would scold you.

In this environment, small things began to take on larger meaning. Life was no longer a succession of events scribbled into an appointment book or jotted on a calendar. Life was what was happening every moment, even when I found myself sitting in the shade of a tree by the roadside, waiting for a bus and having no conclusive idea as to when it might arrive. Life was what I determined to do with my time from the moment I sat down there in the grass until the moment the bus arrived, which might be three minutes, or three hours.

I noticed, unlike in my own culture, people’s willingness to wait and how they occupied themselves during these interims. One lady might pull a piece of handwoven cloth out of her bag and proceed to sew a garment; another woman might just sit there and stare, simply observing nature or the other people waiting or the passers-by. One man might pull out a pipe and smoke, looking as though he were thoroughly enjoying every puff. Someone else might just curl up on the grass and take a nap. He didn’t worry, because someone would wake him up when the bus arrived. Thus, by watching others, I slowly began to settle into this notion of letting go of time and simply making the most of the moment.

After I had been in this village for about five months, I was napping on the beach one day, just lying there on my back, probably snoring, when suddenly I was awakened by a man’s voice with a British accent. “Pardon me,” he said, “But could you tell me what time it is?” I was dumbfounded. Time? What was he talking about?! The question struck me as utterly absurd and I laughed aloud, not meaning to offend, but I couldn’t help myself. “I’m sorry, I don’t,” I said. “Why do you need to know what time it is?” He explained that he had, just the day before, ruined his watch by forgetting to take it off while swimming. “I’m trying to get to (he named the next village over) and I think it might be getting late,” he said. “It’s okay,” I assured him, “It’s quite a walk, but you’ll get there. The sun won’t go down on you.” With that, he thanked me and hurried off up the hill toward the footpath. It was a lovely walk, to be sure, but I wondered how much of it he would actually see. Would he stop to notice the view out over the cliffs? Would he see those huge birds, possibly albatrosses, nesting in the rocks of the islands just off the coast? Would he notice how the waves come in patterns? Would he take any of the smaller cut-offs from the path, leading to any number or spectacular sights? He would arrive “in time,” but would he stop to live along the way?

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“ressentir” des connexions est mon moment présent …je dois apprendre à les comprendre , afin qu’elle me guide , m’informe , me renseigne , etc etc

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