DOUGLAS -- In 2014 I owned that I'm a chronically late person. The final step was the slapping of a bumper sticker on the back of my Toyota. In black letters on a pink background, it reads, "Psychologically incapable of being anywhere on time."
I picked it up at a kitschy tourist shop on a summer visit to Whidbey Island.
Anyone who has spent more than a day with me knows my proclivity for tardiness. I am late to work just about every day, whether I wake up an hour or three hours before start time.
I should be ashamed of slinking by colleagues or sneaking into plays just as the lights go down. I'm in a perennial battle with the clock. There is just not enough time in a day to fit everything in. And it ticks me off. So I take it out on myself by making life more hectic and difficult.
I guess I got the tardy gene from my dad. He's always valued the quality of time over quantity. Maybe he got on "Italian time" the few years we lived in Rome, where I was born. Italians have their priorities straight — good food, coffee, wine and naps. In Italy, there is always time. Perhaps that's why every time I visit Italy, I feel at home, even though we moved back to California when I was 18 months old.
The schools in our Marin County neighborhood were not far from home. When I was running late, Dad would offer to drop me off on his way to work. I was late as soon as he made the offer.
By high school, this was a real problem. And if anyone was going to cure this malady, it should have been my senior English teacher, Mr. Skinner, or Skinhead, as we somewhat fondly called him. Skinhead ran his classroom like a drill sergeant. He had a shiny bald head and a clean-shaven face and wore glasses with thick black frames. Walking in a second late resulted in a loss of points. "Heldt!" he'd shout as soon as I'd sauntered in. Then he'd look down at his grade book and mark a red check next to my name with a flourish.
"You're late. Again."
Long ago, I internalized a perception of time perennially behind the rest of the world. From my first baby shower to every party I've ever hosted, I've miscalculated the 20 minutes between on time and too late.
Attending local arts events is especially frantic. We live in an insular community where the longest drive to most events is less than 30 minutes. Once I chose to see an experimental theater event in downtown Juneau, a 10-minute drive from our house on Douglas Island. The performance began at 7 and l left the house a few minutes before 7. Upon arrival, a handmade sign tacked to a set of closed double doors met me. It read, "ABSOLUTELY NO LATE ENTRIES." Well, that was a slap in the face.
I grabbed the free weekly paper to see what else was happening. Perfect. "Seminar," a play about fledgling writers who hire a verbally abusive writing coach, was playing at Perseverance Theatre in Douglas, just down the street. Because I'm not the only chronically late person in town, theater events often start 15 minutes after the time scheduled. The show was sold out when I arrived close to the 7:30 start time, but thanks to a last minute no-show I sat right in the middle, with a good view of the action. Sure enough, the play began about 7:45.
Here I was, "rewarded" for being late. It was a bit of a thrill. Perhaps that's what I thrive on: the adrenaline rush of waiting until time is nearly up.
The 20-minutes-off zone is a vortex I've been in so long I thought I could not escape. But I did manage to get ahead of it once.
It was a December First Friday gallery walk. I usually make it for the last part or miss it entirely. But for a gallery walk last spring, I was downtown in the late afternoon for work. Here was a rare opportunity to fulfill my dream of starting First Friday when it actually starts, around 4 p.m.
I began at the Juneau Arts and Humanities gallery. The exhibit featured the artwork of students of the University of Alaska Southeast, where I work. No one was there yet, not one proud student, faculty or early member of the public. I left as a young woman from the arts council slipped trays of sliced cheese, crackers and grapes onto a buffet table.
I stepped out into the light and unearthed the First Friday schedule from my purse. It was still early enough to avoid an elbow war for a taste of guacamole at a locally owned shop that sells graphic novels. But as I stepped in the door, artwork was lined up along the base of the wall, the proprietors just starting to hang it. And the guacamole? "Marian is in the back making it," said Lou, the owner.
By now, I was on the verge of going home for a while and rushing back for that old frenzied feeling. I made another round of venues and people did finally show. Still, I felt like the party guest who shows up unfashionably early. Life in the early zone was lonely.
The following evening, my husband Karl and I decided to catch a movie at our local art house venue, the Goldtown Theater. We never arrive early enough for a coveted seat on the comfy couch in the back.
But I was on a roll in the on-time zone. "We're leaving early so we can get the couch!" I announced to Karl. We crossed the Juneau-Douglas Bridge and cruised into town at 6:40, a full 20 minutes before the movie. And walked into an empty theater.
We plopped ourselves down on the auburn velvet.
My lower back was bugging me and the couch aggravated it. I messed with a plethora of pillows. Amazing. Here we were, finally early enough to take over the couch, and I was picky about the right combination of pillows to make it just right, Goldilocks-style. Out of sorts in the early zone again.
After a weekend of this, I was ready to go back to living on the frayed edge of tardiness. Then I recalled an interaction during an airport security check on a recent Memorial Day weekend.
We made it through screening without a hitch. Few fellow travelers were visible.
"What is up?" I asked the TSA guy. "It's the start of Memorial Day weekend and no one is here." "Oh, they're here," he replied with confidence. "The early people are already in the boarding area. The late people aren't here yet. You're on time."
Freelance writer Katie Bausler is a devoted resident of the island kingdom of rainy Douglas, Alaska.