Who’s time is it anyway?

August 1, 2015

Locked in the passenger seat, driving about the back roads of Samoa, I wrestle with controlling time. I have no control, of course.  I am not driving nor am I deciding. I am along for the ride, during which others choose how to spend the time we have together.

Herein lies my greatest frustration with visiting the many places I go.  I am out of control.  I mean, if course, out of the place of taking control.  And for those who know me well, that is not the place I prefer to be.

In Samoa, I have nearly 12 hours to fill between the end of my workshop and the departure of my flight.  Fortunately, some friends of mine invite me to visit a program of theirs.  So we spend part of the afternoon together. At one point, my friend gets a little nervous about the time, asking if I want to go.  But I am trying to fight the urge to check the time or concern myself with how much I am accomplishing in this little bit of time. So we hang around and I think, good for me.  Taking the afternoon in stride, as I have a lot of time to consume.

But then my workshop contact picks me up in his truck.  I think great, we have a good amount of time before checking in. I was not aware, however, that he planned to take me on a little side trip.  One of his colleagues wished to show me her village. Okay, I thought. A quick side trip.

We stopped at the office.  We stopped at a store. We turned off onto the side road and drove up the mountain. We stopped to take tourist type pictures.  And I started to check the time.  The road stretched on. We drove through a village, but not hers.  We stopped for another tourist pic. Now I am softly talking to myself, wondering why I agreed to this. Time is wondering away as we continue to meander down the road.  Slowly.  Over potholes and road bumps. Up, down, back, forth. Where is this village and when will the road end? I am jumping inside.  The time.  The time!

Through the trees, I see it.  Pristine beach.  The green lush against the blue of the Sea. But still around a couple of bends.  Rain sputters as we arrive.  And a young man stops us.  It is evening prayer time and we have to stop the truck. My companions converse rapidly in Samoan, so I am a bit in the dark, left to my own time freak outs. Although they want to show me more, I finally share my concern. So we finally get permission to drive into the remote village, only to turn around to assuage my struggles with control.

But of course, as the sky darkens and we wend our way back, time twists around the other way and I find myself with plenty of it.

I firmly believe I regularly return to these time bending places to learn a few lessons about relaxing control.