Epiphany in the sawdust
I spent most of Saturday out in my shop, working on my latest project. It was a blustery gray day, unusual, and I could hear the wind howling past the open garage door. I like being out there. I turn on the tunes and make sawdust from wood and shell and feel closer to A, and wonder what he’d think about what I was doing, and what advice he’d give me to do it better, because as much as I aspire to being an artisan, I am not one. I understand now why he considered his shop his home away from home. If I were as skilled as he, I’d feel more of that, but even so, I like to putter out there.
As I sat there, I realized that at that moment, I was fine. I was living my life, focused on my work, and not feeling down. I was thinking about him, but I wasn’t focused on the loss of him. I was engaged in a hobby that I never would’ve started were A still here; if that isn’t moving forward, I’d like to know what is. I thought about it, and realized that if I had no idea about my past, if I had no conception of the future, and all I had to judge my whole life on was that moment, I’d have to say I had it pretty good. And as I considered that moment, I had an epiphany: I have been going about this life thing all wrong.
I realized at that moment that we live our lives in moments. Not hours, or days, or years, or decades. Moments. When we think back on our fondest memories, it isn’t “Remember what a great year 1989 was?” No, it’s, “Remember how I almost got crushed at that Duran Duran concert?” It’s the moments we remember. I don’t remember much about the flights out to California to see my A; but I remember the moment I first put my arms around him and felt his strong, muscular back so clearly that my fingers twitch at the memory.
Moments. Moments are what matter.
All my life, I’ve tried to figure my life out and plan my future. Even in grief, I’ve tried to do this. I don’t know how many times I have completely overwhelmed myself by asking, “How am I going to get through the rest of my life without him here?” But I don’t have to figure that out (and good thing, too, because I can’t), because I only have to live a moment at a time, and the rest will take care of itself. They years fly by precisely because they are meaningless; what’s important are the moments that they are made of.
It’s easy enough to say, “Well, you know, that’s kind of the whole Zen thing; all we have is ‘now.’ People have been saying that for ages.” I realize that; I never suppose I am the first to discover any of the truths I manage to stumble upon. However, it is one thing to understand the words a concept, and quite another to truly know it in your bones, and when you finally get something that you’ve heard for years, it’s worth noticing, for I think that is the birth of wisdom. Wisdom, too, arrives in moments. Perhaps all that is required of us, all that has ever been required of us, is to pay attention.