"You mean, right now?"

Past and future are in the mind only - I am now. ~Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
(via Lori Moreno)

Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life. ~Eckhart Tolle
(via Lori Moreno)

Someone once asked Yogi Berra what time it was. "You mean right now?" he answered. (Source unknown)


I was with a school friend and neither of us had seen the other in more than 20 years. I could see changes in both of us - he not so rough-edged, I a little more relaxed. ("After changes upon changes we are more or less the same." Paul Simon, The Boxer.) I don't know what he thought and maybe I won't know. But what impressed me was how gentle and engaged he and his wife were with their son, how relaxed they seemed with him, how much they loved and enjoyed him and yet how clear they were with him on what was appropriate. I contrasted that to my own behavior when my kids were young and how rigid and angry and fearful I was so much of the time. That was the way I was then, that was my makeup.

I didn't feel a great need to reminisce with my friend. I remember those days and how much time I spent at his house and imposed on his hospitality, mostly because I didn't know how to drive a car and didn't make decisions but waited for him to do so. However, today, I was interested in what his life is like now, for instance that he writes for several English-language publications in Japan, that it takes sometimes fifteen hours to fly from Tokyo to here for the three of them, that he plays in a rock band for fun. And at one moment it struck me how little time I may be in another's presence, that at other times I think of the other in my head or look at a picture and that actually being in the other's presence, the living, breathing man sitting next to me and talking with me, what a rarity in life that is, and how true that is with others I know and my encounters with them. Presence is fleeting but how powerful it is when we experience each other's breath and being.

I don't know when I'll see my friend again, but I can write him and maybe visit him, check in on his parents. We don't owe each other anything, but I can be generous and maybe we will have something, another now.

thoughts

"Don't project negativity into the future" - unknown

"I don't need to compare my inside to someone else's outside" - unknown

"Talk about the future, now we put the past away." - Elvis Costello

"Yesterday is history, tomorrow's a mystery, today is a gift. That's why they call it the present." - unknown

See on FB: "Don't be so humble. You're not that great." - Golda Meir

Hope

"You gotta give 'em hope!" - Harvey Milk

"How do you hope for people who have no hope?" - Eugen Kullmann

"hope not being hope / until all ground for hope has / vanished" - Marianne Moore, "The Hero"

Blog Day

I read on Twitter that this is International Blog Day, or something of that nature. Maybe I got the date wrong.

But I don't read too many blogs these days. I'm mostly reading Twitter.

I really enjoy this Twitter feed. One of my favorite posts: "You know, sometimes it's nice having you around. But now ain't one of those times. Now gimmie the remote we're not watching this bullshit."

The guy who tweets this stuff seems to be enjoying himself too.

writing

I have no stamina for writing. I stop as soon as a thought is half-formed. Once I only saw in other people's success my own failure. But I don't feel the need to compare myself to someone today. A certain degree of acceptance goes a long way. I was the way I was, I am the way I am, though I believe I can change. It's a practice, like many in my life (prayer, meditation, yogurt.)

"I had hardly begun to read
I asked how can you ever be sure
that what you write is really
any good at all and he said you can't
you can't you can never be sure
you die without knowing
whether anything you wrote was any good
if you have to be sure don't write"
— W.S. Merwin

Update (8/27/09): Guess I need this.

Road rage

I spend a lot of time in the car: travelling to work, schlepping kids, running errands (errants). I used to accelerate and then brake really hard. I'd get upset at someone making a difficult turn in front of me or when traffic wouldn't move at the pace I expected. Today it's different, and I'm not sure what happened. I leave more time to travel and get somewhere even a little early. I drive in the right lane unless I'm going to pass. What used to really frost me was when I would let someone in or let someone cross in front of me and they would not acknowledge me. "You're welcome, bitch," I'd say out of earshot. Today I realize that nobody owes me anything and that I needn't expect acknowledgement or recognition. Just let the other person go, make room, anticipate crosswalks or other cars entering traffic. And slow down, relax and try to be conscious- of my breath, of what I see and hear, what's around me.

Happy where I am

Tick Happy Where He Is.

Me too (though I don't suck blood or excrete spirochetes.)