Living in the moment
I have been reading The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis for the past several weeks. It is a book that I read when I was a wee young thing, and while I was totally enamored with the humor and creativity of it, there was no way I could fully appreciate the book at that time. Because in youth so much of life is understood in broad brush strokes, the detailed nuance of human motivations and those small branches in a decision-making tree did not speak to me then as they do to me now. In one of the chapters, Uncle Screwtape talks about the folly of dwelling in the past and the future. Past… because we can’t change it and it is useless to hang on to it, and even worse, future since it “inflames hope and fear,” (Letter #15). But present, the present “is the point at which time touches eternity.” I’ve often thought that future represents eternity or infinity… because it is yet to come! But I think Lewis is right – with hope for the future also comes fear and anxiety, and ironically, it can imprison a person in a box full of “what if’s.” Not such an eternal feeling, huh? And also strangely, it was my dog that first taught me this lesson, the freedom of the present, and it was she who first really drove home the joys of being in the moment, and how that moment can expand to fill our existence and beyond. So much more powerful than wondering about the future!
There was an incident during the first few week’s of Maris’s life with us that launched this decade long lesson about appreciating the “now.” By this time, Maris was well adjusted to me and Jeff, and she really wanted to be with me all the time. One morning, I wanted to sleep in, and so Jeff left the puppy in the bedroom with me. I am a deep sleeper, so I didn’t hear the dog until a loud ripping sound pierced through the sheathe of slumber and banged on my eardrums. Riiiiipppppp~~~~~, riiiiipppp~~~ over and over again. I sat up, put on my glasses, and to my horror saw small bits of paper strewn about the floor, and my diary torn in half with its spine completely broken. Ack!!! My first response was one of shock and anger. I can’t believe she destroyed my diary!
That diary was heavy beyond its physical weight because it represented my headspace, which at the time was filled with a lot of anxiety. I was contemplating switching careers, potentially leaving a career in classical music I had built over 10 years’ time. It was a path that I had chosen when I was still in my twenties, leaving behind a career that promised wealth and stability, status in society, and what seemed logical to the world of a person with an economics degree from an Ivy League school. I did this thing that the world does not understand, but only musicians could. But nearly 10 years later, after multiple degrees, diplomas, competitions, concerts later… I felt the need to leave the industry and didn’t fully understand why. I was lost. So my diary at that time in 2011 contained so many unanswered questions. How did I get here? What happened? Where do I go from here?
It was this diary that Maris decided to eat. This little animal found such joy in ripping it up. Some pages became tiny bits of pulp. Some pages were spectacularly torn in large chunks. The words and letters that I had so carefully crafted to reflect how I felt were decimated in seconds, so innocently tossed about without any regard to the weight those words represented. It didn’t matter that I had put in hours into those pages. Maris’s lightheartedness obliterated them between her teeth. She was in her moment! Although I yelled at the dog as a part of my reflex, my heart was calm. I was struck by the symbolic significance of the paper carnage on the bedroom floor. Maris, in her innocent exuberance, completely destroyed the baggage I was carrying from my past. All the feelings I had about the past hurts and disappointments lay destroyed before my eyes. I felt freer, as if Maris had given me permission to move on.
The practice of being in the present didn’t come automatically after what turned out to be Maris’s only book-eating incident. I had many years of learning how not to worry about the future, how not to let the past haunt me. And I’m still learning! But after 11 years with Maris, I know what to picture when I find myself anywhere other than the present moment: her floppy ears on our walks, her impenetrable focus on the impending treat, the bliss of play, and the simple but profound happiness of being together. The present is eternity, indeed.
The Little One 