Take Time before it takes you.

Low-tide view of our cabin from the bay.

Same view at high tide from the boat.

Time rules my life. Whether I want it to or not is irrelevant. Ignoring time constraints, schedules and deadlines leaves a person ill-liked, in ill health and impoverished. Society expects, demands that we observe every tick of the clock as vital as every thump of our hearts. In some countries perhaps, people watch time less vigorously. When I was in Cape Town, leaving "just now" meant we'd leave in thirty minutes and meeting someone at 4PM meant they might show up anywhere between 3:30 and 5 without a scold or glare. Here in our great nation, however, t i m e T i m e T I M E t i c k T i c k T I C K s away and every second used unprofitably is a wasted second. Vacation time for a full-time (40 hrs/week) employee is 2 weeks in the US compared to the 5 weeks required of the full-time employees (35 hrs/week max) in countries like France. We over value time and forget to enjoy it until suddenly, we die and it means nothing. Yet breaking its cold grip on us seems impossible. We are also entirely too concerned with gaining withering treasure. That, however, is another tangent for another time.
In Seldovia, I left the time on my phone on the car seat, misplaced my ironman watch somewhere at Lyn's, and failed to understand time by the continuously shining sun. Time, bewitched by my apathy and ignorance, slid from my back and waited nervously in the shadows for my to return. I ate when my stomach growled, walked when I wanted to breath and slept when my eyes fell.

We stayed in tents near the cabin on a beach of a 100 meter wide peninsula. The tide changed about 20 feet in hight every 6 hours. One morning at low tide, Katherine and I went tide-pooling and exploring along the bare ocean floor. After dawdling along the rocky beach handling glassy pebbles, poking at sea life, and watching bald eagles, we returned for lunch and naps on the cabin deck. When we awoke from our naps, the water was almost to the deck supports and the towering rocks explored only a few hours before had disappeared beneath the sudden tide. Alaska is incredible. I watched my first Alaskan sunset our second night in Seldovia.

11:17:35 PM

A crackling fire, Swift's satirical story, and the slowly setting sun lured me to the opposite beach Saturday night, away from the poofs and pockets of the shimmery sleeping bag. I dont know how long I sat, sometimes reading, sometimes with book limply in hand, eyes or mind wandering, wondering. However long or short, that evening spent quietly near the fire was one of the best uses of time I have made here and I will not soon forget that night I sat on the beach doing nothing.