When my son was 10 years old, his first zit appeared on his chin. Offended by the mar to his perfection, he pointed it out to me. “What is that?” he demanded.
“Well, now, I’d say that’s a zit.”
“How do you get rid of them?”
“Time,” I told him.
“Time!” He was alarmed. “I don’t have time for time.”
We live in a hurry-up, I-want-it-now world. We want to control what happens when, and manipulate the world to our convenience. We have no time for time—except when we have no choice.
Polynesian countries know the wisdom of “coconut time.” We can’t rush a coconut to ripen; it happens in “coconut time.” What’s more, we don’t need to pick coconuts; they fall when the time is right.
We can’t grow old before our time. We can’t rush a coconut to ripen. And zits, they just take some time.
Just a minor variation on your last para, Arlene, that we can’t grow old before our time. I recently learned that excessive alcohol consumption does, in fact, accelerate the aging process. So it seems that alcoholic beverages also need to be consumed in coconut time.
Here’s hoping that a glass of red wine with my dinner and a cold beer on a hot day qualifies as “coconut time.”