Like many people, I struggle with the bucolic concept of living in the moment. My daily planner is planned out months in advance. Each week I plot out my goals for the week, my appointments, and my dinner menu. There are very few moments that I’m not at least partly considering the next moment rather than the one I’m in. Perhaps I’m the oddball, but I suspect that this is pretty common amongst people today. Everything is about what’s next.
Living in the moment . . . what does it mean? Is it akin to so many other phrases that denote the need for appreciation for what you have or what you are or who you are at any given time?
Is it a reminder that “life is short” so “seize the day” but don’t forget to “stop and smell the roses?”
Those expressions wouldn’t have gained overuse prominence if there weren’t truth to them.
This is what has prompted my little life appreciation lesson. I was fortunate enough to “have” to go to Fort Lauderdale Maine
This trip came up fast and took a lot of work to pull together. With a little help from some hotel points and a supportive spouse, I was able to extend the trip two extra days and bring my daughter with me. We had a wonderful, sunshine filled, causal couple of days.
The evening before our 8:00 am flight home, after touring around on a water taxi and seeing the yachts and mansions of the rich and famous, we took a walk on the beach before dinner. Always prepared, we both were wearing our bathing suits and decided to take a swim. The water was warm, easy to get into and the waves were just raucous enough to be fun. We have beautiful beaches in Maine but the water rarely reaches above sixty degrees and swimming in it is, well, numbingly uncomfortable for me at this age.
We splashed and bobbed and floated for two hours. It was getting dark and we hadn’t had dinner yet. The guys who worked for the hotel were clearing the beach, stacking lounge chairs and picking up towels. I felt that pull of responsibility and got out of the water to dry off. My daughter protested and made a case for staying in, claiming she’d only rinse off in the pool rather than swim for another hour once we left the beach (she lied).
So I gathered up our things and sat in the sand with my camera. Watching her jump and flip around in the waves made me curiously sentimental for days when I had nothing to worry about, nothing to plan or prepare for. Truthfully, I can’t even remember feeling like that although I must have as a child. We had seen a boat earlier in the day that was named “Seas the Day” and I loved the play on words with one of my favorite sayings. It was a struggle for me to just sit in the warm sand, digging my feet in, shooting the beach and waves and my sweet little daughter just playing in the ocean.
I have returned home. I’ve thought about those moments quite a few times, that churning in my stomach, a gnawing feeling that I should be doing something else (like packing for our early departure). For me, recently diagnosed with ADD, I wonder if it is that “driven” feeling that is a symptom of the disorder. Or is it’s a byproduct of a busy life? Perhaps my Catholic school guilt which says that I shouldn’t stop and enjoy myself, that I must always be productive. I don’t know for sure why I feel the way I do about it but I know I’m on a quest to practice more mindful behavior. Allow myself to take pleasure in the small, wonderful things about my life, like being able to type this post with one of my cats just over my shoulder and the other nestled on the desk in front of me.
And I will sit in the sand and watch my daughter play in the sea. I will live in the moment, even if it’s just for a moment. This moment.
