Leave Taking, Day 3
Day 3: Time
I'm pretty sure in America, time shifts-shapes and warps until it is rarer, smaller, stingier. We spend time in America, like we spend money. We also run out of it. In Laos, time is like the Mekong. At times, barely moving. Great, swollen expanses of time. On especially hot days here, time spends us. We lay motionless on flat surfaces in dark rooms, begging for the release of night time, begging for time to release its steadfast grip on us, in the hot hours of the day. What do I have a lot of here in Lao? I have time. Time to think, time to do yoga, time to read, time to drink Beer Lao, time to watch the sunset, time. There's no shortage of it here. The only reliable measure of it: the temple drumming/gonging which happens at the same times each day. I'll miss waking up on a Sunday with an entire day sitting like a fat, lazy dog in front of me, and knowing that I won't have to spend the time in a myriad of ways. I can just sit in it, indulgently.
I'm pretty sure in America, time shifts-shapes and warps until it is rarer, smaller, stingier. We spend time in America, like we spend money. We also run out of it. In Laos, time is like the Mekong. At times, barely moving. Great, swollen expanses of time. On especially hot days here, time spends us. We lay motionless on flat surfaces in dark rooms, begging for the release of night time, begging for time to release its steadfast grip on us, in the hot hours of the day. What do I have a lot of here in Lao? I have time. Time to think, time to do yoga, time to read, time to drink Beer Lao, time to watch the sunset, time. There's no shortage of it here. The only reliable measure of it: the temple drumming/gonging which happens at the same times each day. I'll miss waking up on a Sunday with an entire day sitting like a fat, lazy dog in front of me, and knowing that I won't have to spend the time in a myriad of ways. I can just sit in it, indulgently.
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