So, as you know, I’m on Island Time right now. Mostly metaphorically.

It’s adding vacation-like aspects to my life this week to make it seem like I’m on holiday when in fact I’m doing much of what I normally do.

On Day 2 of this island thing, I went to my morning dance class. And then headed over to a favorite cafe to eat a beloved and looked-forward-to sandwich. Sandwich! Just as spectacular as I’d remembered.

I sat and wrote for a while in my bright green designated Island Time notebook. Until it felt like I was done with that.

Why not.

Heading to the bus stop, it suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t have to bus at all.

This was a very Island-ey thought, too. It wasn’t: “Oh, taking a cab gets me back to work that much faster!” Nope. I could walk.

It might be an hour and a half. Possibly a bit more. But I wasn’t in a hurry. Yeah!

By chance I was wearing sturdy walking shoes instead of hot pirate queen boots. I had sunscreen on and a full water bottle. Nothing in my bag but dance shoes (super light) and the green notebook.

Plus I’d even brought a skirt to pull over my workout clothes, so as not to be all “Hey Portland, why don’t you check out my ass in these crazy-tight tights!”

It wasn’t that hot out. I didn’t have anything else planned, because ISLAND TIME! Why not? Why not, indeed.

Berlin.

Walking happily in the sun, swinging my water bottle and humming a little hum under my breath, I was transported back to Berlin. To when I lived there.

At that time, money was … tight. And I don’t mean that in the casually always-pinched way so many people I know refer to money being tight. It was different than that.

Here was my life:

An abandoned building in east Berlin. We stepped gingerly over the passed-out junkies in the stairwell. And the needles they left behind.

There was no heat in the winter. Well, you could haul up coal to burn from the basement. But in an empty building with no warm neighboring apartments to seal it in, the heat didn’t last. And when you were out of coal, that was it.

That was it.

My expenses — for getting to stay in the apartment and contributing to food and the occasional emergency — came to maybe a hundred dollars a month.

Which often was exactly as much as I had. Sometimes more than I had.

I taught yoga and Shiva Nata when and where I could.

In a variety of unlikely makeshift locations:

A preschool that was actually a squatted electrical company building. The basement of an old age home for Alzheimer patients.* A dance cooperative. An empty school that had been converted into artist studios.

* With sweetly baffled old nazis who couldn’t remember being nazis and were full of love, but that is another story for another day.

Shaky.

At the time I was still recovering from the bloody, messy inner ear infection that had laid me out for months and nearly been the end of me.

I was pretty much deaf in my right ear for the better half of a year.

Shaky. It was all a bit shaky and I was learning how not to shake so much. Or at least, how to not fight it.

Anyway.

What was it about walking on a sunny early afternoon, water bottle in hand, not being in a rush to get anywhere?

Ah, right.

So I didn’t have money back then. But what I had — in glorious plentitude — was time.

As much as I wanted. And I wanted all of it. I rejoiced in it.

Money was this precious, limited thing, always carefully put aside for the absolutely most vital things: shelter and sustenance.

But time! Time was this expansive, spacious, beautiful currency. And for the first time in years (ever?), no one else had a claim on it.

Here’s the thing.

The truth is — and it pains me to remember this and share it but I will tell you anyway — I had been poorer than this before.

I had lived through tightness. In tighter, scarier and much more difficult circumstances than these.

But this was really and truly the first time in memory that my time was my own.

So the idea that I would even consider spending two whole euros on taking the train across the city to get somewhere was preposterous.

Two euros?! An actual, visible fraction of my rent.

If it took me an hour or two hours or even three hours to get somewhere by foot, what of it?

I liked walking. Berlin is a marvelously walkable city (no creepy neighborhoods, no hills, easily-identifiable landmarks everywhere), and I had time.

Time was for breathing.

Breathing and thinking and making plans.

And I had just … okay, I need a verb here… just received the tiny-sweet-thing germ idea of The Fluent Self:

A comprehensive, creative, personalize-able system of destuckification and learning how to work on your stuff.

I was using it, practicing it, writing it, documenting it, dreaming it and processing it.

It was an incredibly exciting time for me. A very healing time.

And again, I had time.

This work of processing and sorting out could be just as easily done while ambulatory. So I walked.

It didn’t matter.

Before my illness — when I didn’t know that I wouldn’t be able to work for four months — I’d bought a pass to a local yoga studio where I’d hoped to teach. And part of my walking through the city was to help me use that pass.

It took me just over 90 minutes to walk to class. A 75 minute class. And over 90 minutes to get back.

That’s about four and a half hours in order to have a yoga class. Some days I did it twice.

It didn’t matter. I had time.

Back to the other day.

So here I am, in Portland, now, walking in the sun. Invoking Island Time.

Not a care in the world. No rush and no deadline.

And for the first time in the six years since I launched this website and started my company, time was readily available again.

There was this sort of cha-chunking sound reverberating through me as everything switched.

Switch? Like the switch on the train tracks being pulled.

The gears of interaction between that thing that is time and that thing that is money shifting into a different relationship.

Or a different place in their bigger relationship.

I have to stop the story here for now.

Because there is so much more to tell and we’re already long past anything that could be considered a non-ridiculous word count on this.

I will come back and tell you about what happened next and about what I was wrong about (wrong twice!).

And we will talk about the complicated relationship between time and money, between us and our stories, between us and our stuff.

We will remember that just as there are situations of ohmygod-no-time and ohmygod-no-money, and (tfu tfu tfu) situations where both these things are true or feel true, there are also times where it is not either one or the other.

We will explore.

In the meantime….

Comment zen for today.

Talking about hardship (past or present) can stir up pain. It can remind us of so many things.

So if reading about my stuff has reminded you of your stuff, you might need to pause (paws!) and give legitimacy to whatever you’re feeling. Or create safe rooms for past versions of you.

Or take a deep breath and remind yourself that things get better and that now is not then. You have internal resources now that you did not have before. You can help sad, scared you from then in ways you couldn’t at that time.

Or you will experiment and see what you need.

I know you will find a way to meet your pain. And I have love for you-who-has-pain. Being in pain is never fun.

We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. We take responsibility for the fact that it is ours and we remember that it is temporary.

Things that would be lovely today: stories about island time, love and appreciation, a flower.

There will be a part 2!