What will you do with your time?

“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.” Henry David Thoreau

An armada of pelicans swoops low over sparkling blue water whose rise and fall along the shoreline offers up the only sound on this perfect morning. What a day! What a way to spend time! Two dolphins arch up and with a smooth and graceful movement dip their snouts in a deeper dive for food. Black-suited surfers idle on their boards in a lazy wait for some yet more perfect wave. They have all day. It seems in this moment that we all do.

Thoreau had his stream. I have a vast ocean. This long weekend getaway to Rosarito Beach in northern Baja California has settled over me at last as I loll in the warm sun, a gentle breeze playing over my body. The soft clatter of bamboo wind-chimes that hang above fragrant ginger lily is the only sound other than the crashing surf below. Startled by the screech of a gull, I open my eyes and gaze out across red-tiled roofs and let the shimmering silvery-blue light warm my mind.

Rosarito has changed much in the 30 years since Las Gaviotas, where we are staying, was built. It won’t be long before the shoreline between Tijuana and Ensenada will be solid with homes, just like our own southern California landscape. What problems will this growth bring? What will be done about them? What part do we visiting Americanos have in all this?

Friend Catharine and I talk often of the changes in Laguna over the many years we have both lived here. Traffic, long a problem, continues to thwart and annoy. Noise pollution seems to increase daily. Water pollution continues to have no easy solutions. Still, where else could we go and still have paradise? Where else could we go and still have access to so many of the cultural accoutrements to which we have become accustomed?

If only.... If only there could be enough time, we could use the city’s transportation system. If only enough time, walking -- beyond that of our daily exercise -- might be an option for avoiding traffic snarls. If only there were some way to raise people’s consciousness of pollution, its effects, and their part in it. If only the landslide in Bluebird Canyon had not happened. If only its devastation could be remedied easily and quietly. As I sit on the deck of our rental condo in Rosarito -- where I have nothing but time -- I ponder the possibilities.

It is often said that if we are not part of the solution then we are part of the problem. While I do not believe that activism is for everyone, I do think that it is important to become aware. There are many environmental problems in Laguna. For some, the solution will require an expertise not possessed by all of us. Conscious awareness, though, on the part of each individual member of the community, can be a part of the solution. It may take a few minutes of extra thought time to come up with ideas for what you, personally, might do to help. It will definitely require conscious intention. We can all become part of the solution.

So, as I scan the gorgeous, peaceful setting in front of me, I think of both this fast-growing place and another -- the one where I live -- and what I can do to retain the things that I so love about Laguna. What is my part in preserving this earth for the future? My reverie has caught some rather inedible “fish.” What will I do with this catch? What will you do?

An Anna’s hummingbird hovers around the rich deep-violet bougainvillea blossoms that drape the deck’s overhanging trellis. Waves crash on the rocky shoreline below. Time. Plenty and not enough.

* Cherril Doty is a creative life coach and artist, exploring the mysteries of life as they come. You can reach her by e-mail at [email protected] or by calling (949) 251-3883.

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