One quick story before I get on a plane and head for the United States. A little while ago I was standing outside at a shopping center with Maury while Gretchen was inside getting some groceries. An older man came up to me and said something in Dutch. This is not good, I thought, because older folks usually don’t speak English as well as younger ones. I tried to understand what he was saying and then asked him if he spoke English. He looked troubled.
“Ik spreek beetje Nederlands,” I said, and he answered “I speak a little English” and then again in Dutch he asked me something I didn’t understand. This time he followed it by pointing at his wrist.
“Oh, the time?” I said. “You want to know what time it is? Hoe laat is het?”
“Nee,” he said, shaking his head. And then he said something again in Dutch and I could clearly hear he was using the word winkel. Well, we were in a winkel center, a shopping center, and there were winkels everywhere. And suddenly what he wanted to say came to him in English.
“I want to make the time good,” he said, and I looked deeply into his eyes and said, “I think we all do, sir, it’s sort of the most important question in life, isn’t it? How do we make our time good? It is one of the philosophical questions of the ages.” Except I didn’t say that, but I did think it while I looked at him. What I said instead was, “I don’t understand.”
But really, how do we make our time good? What entirely does that mean for us? It is a really deep, profound and mysterious question.
And just as he was getting ready to leave me in frustration I suddenly grasped what he was asking me in Dutch. “Sir,” I said, “Are you asking me where you can get your watch fixed in this area?” and he brightened up noticeably and said, “Ja, Ja.”
Sadly, I had to tell him that I have no idea where he can get his watch fixed. I think I might have some ideas how to make our time good, but he wasn’t really interested in hearing them.
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Great post. Great question! I have two thoughts; one comes paraphrased from Michael J. Fox, my current hero, who speaks about his children and parenting; basically, he talks about how we can't really keep them from the pain in the world, but the best we can do is to love the stuffing out of them while we have them. I like that. The other comes from a book that Jamie Lee Curtis wrote, called, "Where do Balloons Go?" which is about what happens to someone when they die. It is all written from the perspective of the balloon. At the end, it says, "Where do balloons go? It's a mystery, I know. So just hold on tight till you have to.....let go". I say we love the stuffing out of each other, and hold on tight till we have to let go. I think that would be time well spent.
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