Perfect Momentum
"People talk about perfect timing, but I think everything is perfect in its moment; you just want to capture that."
Eddie Huang
Here in Costa Rica the concept of time is very different. I feel certain this is true for many places in the world. In America, we hold time as a priority, keeping track of it incessantly with our phones and watches, our wall clocks and alarm clocks. Time is factual and definite. If I say I will meet you at eleven, that means something concrete. If I am late, I will call or text and say so; and when I see you I will apologize profusely and offer a full and detailed explanation.
But here, time is a relative thing, an approximation. It means, I will see you sometime--if I remember, and if the tide is not producing waves so enticing that I simply must surf. I will bring the key to you at 9:00 a.m. actually means, I will bring the key when it occurs to me again that you asked for it. Nobody gets their pants in a wad about much of anything. At first we Americans see this as a flaw in paradise--something that if corrected would make things more...well...American. As though we are the bar by which everyone else is measured.
After a very short time in this environment, one realizes that this relativity of time is not such a bad thing. It gives one permission to kick back and let go of the rat race we run continuously in the U.S. Since it applies to all aspects of life, people get going when they feel like it, and they work until they feel like not working. Our way of life is demanding and exhausting, as shown by the number of anti-anxiety, anti-depressant, and sleep medications we Americans consume. We try to maintain a lifestyle that is simply unsustainable and incompatible with sanity.
Somewhere between obsessive doing and excessive non-doing there lies a field of perfect momentum. I will meet you there--if you promise not to be on time.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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