Island Time

When we first arrived on the island, a woman I met here told me, "You're on island time now."  I had a feeling then that I knew what she meant, but it's only after being here a couple of weeks that it's just beginning to sink in.  I wake at sunrise without an alarm.  I watch every sunset.  I see my neighbors walking their dogs or riding their bikes past my doorstep each morning and evening.   

I read or work on my writing for what feels like half an hour, then I look up at the clock, and three hours have passed.  I've stopped wearing my watch (gasp).  The only thing I rush for is to catch the ferry to the mainland, because unlike everything else around here, it does run like clockwork.  
Yesterday I arrived at the post office around lunch time to find the door locked.  No worries.  I just waited fifteen minutes until the postmistress came back from her lunch break.  It was a good excuse to go buy myself a pumpkin pie ice cream "Down Front" and to catch up on the announcements posted on the community bulletin board near the ferry landing.
Moments stretch into whole afternoons, and a brief glimpse of a seashell or a wildflower colors the entire day with a particular mood.

We have always been avid readers, but here, reading does not have to be squeezed into the gaps between appointments and meetings and classes; on the island it is the center of our days again.  

Sunlight and shadows shift across a room, a cove, a salt marsh, and with these changes come new thoughts, a new sense of being in the moment.
I forget thirty-five years when I climb among the rocks, collecting heart-shaped stones, sea glass, and shells with which to stuff my pockets.
When the wind picks up and clouds roll in, I am fastened to the view in front of my house, watching wave after wave reach for the shore.
As sunset arrives, the marsh turns golden and the cattails come alive.
We head down the road to see what new towers and totems have been built today.  

Bedtime will come when exhaustion takes over.  My conscious mind swims on the surface for how long--seconds an hour?--before it dives down deep into the sound of ocean waves and the oblivion it needs before the coming of a new day.