Lost in Time

"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today."  Mother Theresa

 

"Today is tomorrow, tomorrow is today, yesterday was today, tomorrow will be today tomorrow ...."  Verna Cook-Jackson

I've been living in tomorrow for a week now and I keep thinking it's still yesterday.

I accept Mother Theresa's wisdom that yesterday is gone, tomorrow has yet to come, we have only today - if only I could remember whether I am in today, or tomorrow, or yesterday.

I wake up each day thinking, ah ... it Friday today, isn't it?  I think so.  Or is it?  Maybe it's Thursday.  Or is it Saturday?  Can't be Thursday, can it?

I am in a calendar blur.
 
You see, about a week ago I flew onto a Pacific island where for me, time should not matter.  I am going to be here for a while on what seems to have become an annual retreat into permanent sunshine, warmth and golden sands; a retreat where not giving a s__it as to whether it's Monday, or Wednesday or Saturday, or whatever day should matter.

But it does to me.   

There is my family back in New Zealand who I want to keep in contact with, but apparently they are not really 'back', but in front.  It's in the future where they are.  The future I have yet to have.  For I am in the past.

Then I have family and 'chums' living in other lands around the world.  Most of them seem to be in the future too, but it's what part of the future that makes it confusing.

When and if I wish to make contact with those folk I have to know what day and what time of the day it is where they are.  Meaning I am constantly looking at the clock here and trying to figure out what time it is in Britain, in Dubai, in Australia, in South Africa.

When I sat down to write this scribe I looked at the clock and it told me it was 10 o'clock here in Hawaii, 10 o'clock in the morning.  I went on Google and found it is 9 o'clock in New Zealand.  But is that's 9 o'clock at the opposite a.m. or p.m. that I am?  Or the same?  And whilst 9 o'clock is an hour behind the 10 o'clock, in New Zealand it is 9 o'clock in front of my 10 o'clock.  A day ahead of my 10 o'clock.

And then there is the UK.  I've figured if it is 10 o'clock here in Hawaii it is 8 o'clock there in the United Kingdom.  But then I have to think is 8 o'clock in the UK the same a.m. or p.m. or is the opposite of the a.m. or p.m. that my 10 o'clock is?  But whilst it is the opposite and 9 o'clock and 8 o'clock is really behind 10 o'clock on any clock, it is actually the 9 o'clock and 8 o'clock ahead of my 10 o'clock.

All of this is not helped by the fact that my mobile phone has not accepted it is in a new time zone - it has always been my reliable source of reference for time anywhere I am in the world and had always been grateful that whenever I travelled the watch would automatically know I am in a different time zone so would automatically change it's time.  But on this trip it hasn't.  Nor did my ultra efficient Garmin training watch.  And when I manually changed that time to the one I am in, it went haywire with it's recording and somewhere I lost 20,000 steps!  (But that's another story.)

It's too damn confusing for me to figure out what o'clock it is where my friends are in Britain, Dubai, Australia or South Africa - but to make matters worse, mine hosts of my Honolulu accommodation are presently on the West Coast of the USA, where they too are living in a different time zone - same country, different time zone - and I've yet to work out whether they are in the past or have gone back to the future.

In New Zealand, whether you live on the East Coast or the West Coast if it is 10 o'clock in the middle of the East Coast and the West Coast it is still 10 o'clock on the East Coast or West Coast.  So it's bloody confusing to figure out what time it is for my US friends if they are in California on the East Coast of the US or New Jersey on the West Coast - to me it's just one land mass as is our North Island and South Island (where the time is the same no matter what o'clock it is) and I forget there is a vast difference in distance on the US land mass and therefore time is different anywhere.   Gobbledegook?  Yeah, it's drivel ....  

Have realised this morning that all I really need to focus on in the here and now, from now on - is what time, in the here and now, is Wine O'Clock?