Nothing but time

Dear Santa,

For Christmas, I would like one more hour in each day and two on the weekend. At least. I've been very good all year at using the time I've been given, which is why I'd like more.

Your eternal friend, rr

Even though (sadly) Santa cannot grant my wish, I've felt aglow all day with the gift of time, as if that jolly spirit had, in fact, bent the laws of physics and wrapped me up a personal allotment of hours and minutes. In this case, it wasn't Santa but the powers-that-be at my current school. These enlightened folks came up with something called a content day. During a content day, all the teachers from a certain subject get together for a couple hours in the morning, then have the rest of the day to plan as they see fit. Time. Like all precious gifts, the day has left me feeling warm and grateful, free and mellow. That the day involved six solid hours of work (after the meetings) is beside the point. Or rather it is the point. The six hours I worked this afternoon are six hours I will not have to work this weekend. Six whole hours. The mind boggles, then does a happy dance.

Perhaps you, too, have experienced the warm rush of a free afternoon or hour, the easing of tension, the sudden ability to breathe deeply. Time must surely be our most valuable commodity here in the developed world, surrounded as we are by so many other less fleeting goods (at least for the moment). It isn't that way everywhere. Time in other places is much more fluid. It runs like water through the culture and is impossible to grasp, horde or give away to delighted recipients in six-hour chunks. During the two years I lived in Cameroon, I dealt with a long list of cultural differences. I learned elaborate greetings, how to bargain in French and ways to smoosh myself into half (or a third) of the front seat of a car. I tried every single dish set in front of me, including porcupine and deep-fried crickets. The one thing I never could shake was my Western sense of time. It got me up at 6 a.m. on the "first day of school," and out the door even though I knew...I knew no one would show up and that classes wouldn't start for another week. I simply could not stay in bed when school was supposed to be starting. I had to go see the shuttered classrooms and the abandoned, wind-swept yard for myself. (I like this hourglass because it is full of sand on both sides!)

On a more serious note, it also got me, nine teachers and 45 students arrested on a field trip. Due to bus problems, we arrived late at the school we were visiting in an English-speaking province that was under a strict curfew. Rather than spend the night with our hosts (as all my Cameroonian colleagues suggested), I insisted (strenuously) we return, as planned, because there was no way of alerting the parents that their children would not be home on time. On the road after dark, we were stopped and taken "downtown" to the police station where we were interrogated and forced to spend the night. The next morning, at first light, we returned to our village. The lynch mob of parents I expected never came for me. A mom told me later that they only would have worried had we been a few days overdue.

So, time moves differently other places. This is neither good nor bad (though, given my experience on the wrong side of the law, being able to adjust helps a lot). It is interesting to think about, though, given the degree of happiness and peace a half-day of flexibility inspired. It's made me think about the gift-giving that's coming up and ways I can give the gift of time to others. This will, of course, involve spending my own time--something that, I'll admit, makes my heart flutter with anxiety. But the warm glow wins out because, 'tis the season, after all. If Santa can't come through with a whole day, I should be able to spread around a few hours.

Here is the same clock that walked quietly
Through those enormous years I half recall,
When between one blue summer and another
Time seemed as many miles as round the world,
And world a day, a moment or a mile,
Or a sweet slope of grass edged with the sea,
Or a new song to sing, or a tree dressed in gold

--Judith Wright