My Intuition Blog Experiment: Time's Little House

It's Week 37, Day 3 of my blog experiment and I spend too much of my time in the past or the future. I don't mean to...it just happens. I wake up and make lists of things to do. I think about the future, whether it's what's going to happen this afternoon or next Tuesday. I question the past, how I behaved in a certain argument or what I said in a phone call or what I wrote five minutes or five years ago. 

I have plenty of reminders to live in the immediate and appreciate what -- and who -- is right in front of me. Every mom with young children hears it. "They grow up so fast." It's not uncommon to hear that more than once a day from people walking by, in stores, especially on holidays like Halloween. I do make a point to live in the now, even while carrying out the duties of the day but more often than not, I'm the observer. I'm always torn between capturing the moment, even if it's just taking it in (with or without a camera) and being in it. I don't know how to do both at the same time. 

As far as moms go, there are those who have their scrapbooks made and those who would like to have their scrapbooks made but just haven't gotten around to it yet. I remember, when I lived in New Orleans, there was an old woman who lived in a shotgun house on Magazine Street, next door to a friend of mine named Robert. There was a pile of her things at the curb one day, including old photo albums overflowing the trash cans, and I wondered if she had been evicted. Robert said she had died and no one wanted her stuff. It was one of the saddest things I've ever seen. It had never occurred to me until right then that a whole pile of memories, a lifetime full, could be gone in a blink. How strange and unreal. But there must be a relative, a niece or distant cousin who would want those photo albums. But there wasn't. No one came for them. 

Her past had no connection to the future. I don't want my life to be reduced to a collection of photos that someone may or may not want in the future. (And no, this is not a grand excuse to get me out of organizing the family photos.)

So, how best to live in the present?

Here's my new mantra: I'll use time as my guide and give it a little house. In the morning, after I appreciate the silence and the sun and listen to what the day has to tell me, I'll give the future a little window to rush in and guide me if it wants. My day is full of chatter. That I can't change but, if I pay attention, maybe I'll find a few more pockets of the present I can submerse myself in like a cool pond. Then, at nighttime, I'll open a window to the past, whether it's the past day or week or thoughts of years ago and let them ride in on the curtains before I drift off to sleep and give them a chance to teach me something, anything. 

I know the present is filled with more than I can take in at any given moment which makes me believe that it deserves more of my attention.