Life in a Moment

7:47pm   Cool and calm after an early summer rain.

Royal

 The beautiful moments come when you least expect. Life slows down and you see the world around you. Really see.  You are in tune with everything, or so it feels.  Your children appear as the precious jewels they are, but which you don't always see because you aren't really looking.  All the things they say and all the things they do touch your very heart.  Your senses are alive, absorbing the color of the trees and the smell of the earth after the rain and the sounds of the birds and the laughter of your loved ones. There is complete peace right now, in this moment.  Gone are the frustrations and the guilt of not doing enough or being good enough.  Gone are the pressures and expectations. Gone is is the lazy half-attention you paid to your surroundings as you engaged in mental gymnastics; planning dinner, trying to remember to finish sewing your friend's birthday gift, planning your next trip into town and wondering if the goat feed got put into the barn.  Gone.

Now you just are.  You're simply being. You are not producing, not consuming, not coming, not going, just hovering in a static sort of existence. But it's good.  Perfect, even.  You have a sense that this is it. This is real life.  The other stuff is just chaos distracting you from real life.  And you wonder if you can create more of these moments.  And how.  Because what's the point, otherwise?  What's the point of the fast paced, accomplishment-based lifestyle spiked with turmoil and mood swings?  How can it be worth it?

These thougths play like background music while you live in the moment.  You smile at your partner.  The children giggle and bring you fresh sugar snap peas.  You all take a walk, everyone pointing out interesting things and remarking on them, everyone engaaging, feeling the magic.  Tweny minutes, an hour, an afternoon... Time is irrelevant.  And as subtly as it came, it goes.  It begins to slip away.   The life.  The real life.  Now it's time to wash dishes, the kids found something to bicker about, the dogs ran off, the cat vomitted, you feel frustrated because you remembered that you were suppose to make an important phone call and now it's too late.

How much of your life is passing you by?  How much of your life are you really living? I like to think that I am living many of these such moments, but I'm afraid the truth is I end most days making a mental list of all the things I did or didn't get done.  What a sad measure of human existence.



Take a nap, it's good for the planet. --Denny Henke