TIME

Sitting, wedged in a shaded corner outside of Publix, eating some watermelon slices, an old white southern man asks me if I need a place to stay and if I am doing alright.  In mid-bite I look down at myself with my iphone on my lap and my apparent jogging gear trying to figure out exactly what about me would lead this man to believe I was in need of anything. "Do you want some watermelon?  I'm full." I lift up the last slice, offering it to him and he waves it off saying he is on his way to the doctor.  We smile at each other.  On my way back home I check the star fruit tree a block away to see if there are any new developments in my current addiction.  Still green. I'll come back in a few days.

Here in Florida again I try to determine what my plans for the next year will be and usually this specific thought pattern will lead to one idea after another producing a cranial traffic jam that makes me grit my teeth and if severe enough, lay down.  A friend invites me to come spend time in Oaxaca I respond "So many things so little time!" and she says, "I thought you had all the time in the world, or did I miss something?". What is often difficult for me to remember is that I do have all the time in the world.  I get so eager to do so many things that even pulling off doing one thing becomes paralyzing.

TIME.  When will we get it all in?  At what point will we really accomplish something? At what point will we have a,b,c complete so we can get on to x,y,z?  In the panic that is organizing our time for ourselves, the people we love, what we want to do and what we are obligated to do, time can seem to slip away.  Instead of developing time management skills, acquiring a life coach or personal assistant,  calling it all quits and curling up into a ball between whatever four walls you will inevitably be living in, in a panicked frenzy you are not accomplishing anything valuable and never will-stop your brain and value each present moment and what it has to bring to you. And then the next one and so on.