LIVING ON ISLAND TIME
Telling time here, you quickly learn to depend on the sun rather than an electronic device for frequent power outages and surges cause clocks to run fast or not at all. Battery clocks are okay, but have no lasting power… So when the sun zaps its rays into the eyeballs, it’s time to get up. Later in the day shadows on the porch tell me it is time to read a book… So nature serves me well. I rarely have to be anywhere at a certain time for time is irrelevant to my island friends.
Telling the day and month is way more challenging. With weather that varies little – ranging from “perfect” to “outstanding” – I can’t tell whether it’s February or April and knowing the day of the week is almost impossible, especially for those of us of “a certain age.” In the States, audible clues signal the day of the week. Trash pick-up is Wednesday. The recycling truck rumbles through the neighborhood on Thursday. The condo community’s landscape crew mows on Friday. The school buses don’t run on weekends. The mail truck doesn’t come on Sunday. Here, we don’t have trash pick-up or mail delivery, so all I hear are waves, the call of the osprey, and the click of palm fronds. I only get concern when I am preparing to head back to the states. Afraid I might find that my flight was YESTERDAY or that I might miss painting en plein air on FRIDAYS!
