The man with the guitar stood at the microphone by himself, asking if anyone in the audience would come sing with him.  It was the nightly sunset celebration and for his part, he was singing songs about – you guessed it – sunsets.  He talked to us about how watching the sunset should be a time of thanks.  Thanks for another day.  But back to his dilemma.  He needed some singers.  So, here we were, two musicians, and Doug says, “I feel bad for him – nobody is volunteering.  Do you want to go sing?”.  Me?  Sing?  Without rehearsal?  In front of strangers?  The gentleman asked again, saying, “nobody here knows you and chances are they won’t remember they were here in the morning, so come join me”.

Doug  looks at me again and challenges me.  I had said that I wanted to try doing more things that scared me and here was my chance.  So…. we both got up and volunteered, followed shortly by a young brother and sister.  So, here we are up in front of this crowd singing “daylight come and me want to go home” when cued.  And I did it!  Being an introvert makes things so hard sometimes.

This morning began with breakfast at the same place we had dinner the night before where Doug got key lime French toast.  We are in Key West after all.  Down the street was the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum.  Not my favorite thing to do, but this was Doug’s choice and after all, he put up with the Butterfly Museum yesterday and has walked through numerous art galleries with me.  I didn’t expect to get much from this.  However, I was struck by the perseverance of this guy Mel Fisher.  His dream was SO big, one that began as a boy in Indiana and love for the book Treasure Island.  He ended up in California, learned to dive and ran a diving school with his wife.  They moved to Key West with the dream of finding treasure, spending 16 years looking for the treasure they eventually found.  During this time they barely scraped by, dealt with bill collectors, living in an old houseboat with their kids, and every day, started with the words,  “today’s the day!”. Family passed away in accidents but they continued the work in their names. In the end, they discovered the motherlode, half a billion dollars worth of gold, silver and other things from a Spanish ship that sunk in 1622.  Then they had to fight in court for eight years to be able to keep what they had found, which they finally did.  A dream doesn’t always happen overnight.  Sometimes it takes hard work, belief in that work and time.

Island Time.  Reality or just a state of mind?  Sure, I’m on vacation, but honestly, I have very rarely looked at the time.  I go to bed when I’m tired, get up when I wake up, eat when I’m hungry, walk to wherever I want to go.  I swim for as long as I feel like it and spend time just breathing.  We go to a museum and stay as long as we want. Time seems to last longer, if that makes sense.  I might think it’s 3:00 p.m. and it’s 1:00.  We’ve slowed down, spent time talking, eating great food, creating blogs, iMovies, and taking  thoughtful photos.  We have time to see the beauty in everything, the beautiful flowers, plants, sunsets and art.

What is it about our daily lives that sucks up all the time?  Sure, I work a 7 1/2 hour day, but there are 24 hours in a day.  Why am I not finding time for the same talking, eating great food, creating and taking that time to see the beauty in things in my day?  Am I using the time I have doing work that feeds me, like it did Mel Fisher or am I just doing my time?  Time can be both finite and infinite, but we have choices in how we use our time.  Are we taking time for adventures, for doing things that scare us, things that are out of our comfort zone?  Are we following our dreams and having adventures, even if  that dream doesn’t come to fruition for many years?  I think I’m going to try waking up every day and say “Today’s the Day!”.