AAS base is around 45 minutes from the civilian airport in Kuwait. You go by bus and the bus terminal at the base is remarkably like bus terminals everywhere, with the exception that it lacks the little distractions like coffee shops, restaurants and newsstands. In return, however, you get the gift of time, time for introspection, time for reading, time for just being. Time like this is an anachronism in our scheduled and connected world.
I have the gift of time, with no deeds to do, no promises to keep. Some might complain of boredom, but I am just “feeling groovy” and remembering a little Coleridge.
Time, Real & Imaginary
ON the wide level of a mountain’s head
(I knew not where, but ’twas some faery place),
Their pinions, ostrich-like, for sails outspread,
Two lovely children run an endless race,
A sister and a brother!
This far outstripp’d the other;
Yet ever runs she with reverted face,
And looks and listens for the boy behind:
For he, alas! is blind!
O’er rough and smooth with even step he pass’d,
And knows not whether he be first or last.