It’s something like the first full day of spring. The sun’s burning so bright in its passion, like it’s finally coming out, after a lifetime.
So bright upon everything. The guy next door stepped out in his balcony after months, and I swear I saw his mouth hang open for a few seconds, struck by everything to be seen so clearly. No shadows, no greyish blocks of things..but clear outlines, nuanced textures.. a selfhood of each thing.
Everything is saying- “I am here. Now. Fully.” I can understand his surprise. A momentary blindness caused by seeing so clearly. All at once.
I would know, I have been here all morning. And I have seen…. that the present moment can stretch over a longish time. That what we call ‘now’ can expand and shrink. It has been expanding today. It keeps expanding as I write.
I have wondered why the mindfulness and meditation advocates keep segregating ‘the present’ from the past and the future.
“Don’t live in the past,” they say. “Don’t drift mentally into the future.”
Is it this stupidity which makes ‘staying in the present’ so difficult for people?
Because I have been here now. And now was also couple of hours back. And in all this now, children have been children. Childhoods have been witnessed….Witnessed being shaped, witnessed being memorized, witnessed being etched into personality. And celebrated, compared, and mourned for. Reclaimed and repurposed. And recognized as never having ended. Still, now.
Families are reminiscent of families. Families are modeled on families. Families have broken away from models of families. And they are all true together. Right now.
My ancestors have been telling me stories, of their histories. I have been telling of kindness of strangers I met yesterday. And one is not a more distant memory than the other. I can tell you which one happened ‘before’… if you insist on a dating of things.
But why is all that necessary? If asked to pick which one feels closer, I will say the memory of an ancestor I never met. If they appeared on the bench in the park right in front of me, where the little girl is counting to hundred with her eyes closed, I wouldn’t blink an eyelid.
Because I know both exist.
In the time I have been sitting here now, loves have been lost and found. What is meant when they talk of finding or losing love? Love is energy, and they- the “they” that know everything- say that energy is neither created nor destroyed. It can change from one form to another.
Loves have been lost and found. Changed forms, changed shapes. Meandered, surrendered, expanded, constricted. Melded together. Think of a lake into river… a river into sea… a tender snowflake.. a torrent of rain..a drop of dew on a fresh leaf.
Nothing which has once existed, ever ceases to exist.
Neither dead ancestors, nor any shape of love, nor childhood.
It is kind of stupid, the way we talk of ‘past’. “Don’t live in the past,” they say. Please show me one person who is living outside of the past. You can only believe or behave as if you are. If you muster sufficient delusion. And even so, not on a day when the sun shines so bright that you can see everything.
When they say, “Don’t dwell on the past, nor worry about the future. But live in the present,” what they actually mean is- don’t get overpowered by your emotions: yearning, regret, anxiety.
They say- “Focus on the breath. Count to 10. Observe the tree.” And yet no one can do that more than a few minutes at a time. But we are so threatened by our emotions, that there are multiple industries helping us step out of them. Even if for a few minutes.
I get it.. I get it big time, this need to step out of emotions. But emotions are also energy. And they say, energy is neither created not destroyed. Just transformed from one form to another… think of a lake into river.. and river into sea…a tender snowflake.. a torrent of rain.. a drop of dew on a fresh leaf.
It is okay, it is okay to want to step out. Except, honey, you’ll look mighty stupid wearing a raincoat while tossing around in the sea. Fact is, if there is water, you will get wet.
So, about living in the past or the future. You will live in both, and in the present. And at this point all this distinction seems superficial. All three are melded together at all points. The most wonderful thing though, is that you get to tell the story. Because all three live inside of you (or vice versa), every moment. Try to make it so that the past always looks beautiful- to you. Because you will be living in it a lot. Maybe a lot more than in the future- if only because there’s not enough conscious material for that. The deal is to know that there are many different kinds of beautiful.
There is one thing though, which has confounded me all morning. Which did not seem to fuse in a timeless continuity….which seemed to have a boundary- some sort of access, beginning and end. It was when I heard someone talking of a place they referred to as a second home. They meant it in the way of finding a sense of unconditional peace.
And I thought, “Wow, a second home! How many people have a first?” I don’t think about the concept of home all that much. But yes, now and then. And many talk of whether it is a place or a feeling or a person or inside oneself. I guess it can be any or all of them, but mainly it has to do with peace.
Home, is peace.
And I wonder if only children have home. Adults, they have pockets of refuge.
Peace- it’s not exactly like love. It’s not exactly like childhood, nor like my dead ancestor. Peace that has once existed in the past, does not necessarily continue to spill into the here and now. It does not transmute or flow. It is, or is not.
I’m still grappling.. Is it because peace is not a form of energy? But in fact grounding of energy?
A past home is a fragrant memory of home. You cannot return to it even though your ancestor could turn up and sit on the bench in front of you. A past home is nostalgia.
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