Sage advice to "live in the moment" is freely given. My best friend sent me a wonderful article by Anne Quinlen today talking on just this subject. As I was reading it I was struck by how impossible this is. Not because we are incapable of living and appreciating the moment but because we are incapable of remembering that we lived in the moment later.........after that moment is gone. It is kind of like childbirth. You remember going through it but the actual deep, indescribable pain that was in those moments, is impossible to remember. And thank goodness.
As humans, I wonder whether we are somehow protected from remembering that we lived through all the moments of our lives - I mean REALLY remember, the actual moments. Upon contemplation I think that the answer is no.........and yes.
I remember that I have felt joy, but the euphoria of the moment is impossible to conjure up.
I remember feeling like the luckiest girl in the world because I was married to a man who cherished me, made me laugh and now that that man is a cold shell of himself, the memory of another time only brings me more pain. It doesn't do me a bit of good today that I appreciated and was aware of the good of yesterday.
I remember loving my babies so much and never wanting to lose the physical sensation of holding them close. I still love those babies to the depths of my being but cannot recapture their soft skin and sweet scents, no matter how much I was aware of it then. Those moments are in the past.
I could go on but what I think is that reality, being human, is a continuum of moments of pleasure and pain, gratitude for what is, and lots and lots of plain old breathing and existing and living day to day. I completely agree that happiness is dependent upon our awareness of life's little blessings along our journey. What I am figuring out is that the memories of those blessings are bittersweet. Though I distinctly remember noticing and appreciating what I was living ( sometimes, lots of times but not always), the very fact that that time is now in the past, brings with it, wistfulness.
Tonight I went to the movies by myself. There were no takers in my house for a French movie, in French, so I took myself. The movie is called "Paris" and it is a drama, a comedy, it is sad and happy, introspective and shallow, in other words, even in French words, it is a movie about life. I was acutely aware of how I was feeling as I made my way home after its conclusion. I was alone and a little lonely, an outsider in a warm, Parisian family neighborhood, but I was on a Parisian sidewalk from where I could see the Eiffel Tower sparkling furiously, and I could also see the golden lamplight glowing from the 5th floor corner apartment that is my home. Two of my "babies" were up there waiting for me, the very same ones from the past.
In that moment I knew that I was lucky to be in the moment....... that I was in.
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