From My Journal: Moments of Being

As I wash the morning's dishes, I look out my kitchen window and observe an elderly lady walking down our street. She is charmingly dressed in a light purple jacket with a red cloth hat sitting atop her short silver hair. She stops, turns around and looks up at the flowering plum trees. A huge smile crosses her face and accents her sparkling eyes. Clearly she is absorbing this moment for all it's worth. Her happiness becomes my happiness, for I completely understand her emotions: Each day of living is beyond precious, when we enter our older years. I also find I carry an immense amount of gratitude for each leaf, each blossom, each ounce of beauty, I see.

Though I tend to believe that “this knowing life is fleeting and precious” message is reserved for our senior years, I discovered yesterday afternoon this may not be so. Dan and I attended the Eugene Symphony earlier in the week where the now grownup violin prodigy, Midori Goto, played Jean Sibelius' Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 47. I sat on the edge of my seat watching Midori completely lose herself and become one with her instrument. Her playing was breathtaking; the emotion she somehow shared with us caught me by surprise, and I felt hot tears rolling down my cheeks. It was announced that Midori has been undertaking a week long residence in Eugene, working with both the Eugene Symphony and the Youth Symphony. She has visited, worked with and inspired string classes throughout the local school districts, and on Saturday afternoon her presence in our community would culminate in a performance with our Youth Symphony.

So there we were Saturday, listening once again to the mesmerizing Midori and hearing first hand evidence of her inspiration upon Eugene's young musicians. It was between pieces that the director of our Arts Umbrella, an elementary string teacher and a young first year string student appeared on the stage. They were there to testify to Midori's impact. It was the third grade boy's words which caught my attention. “What was it like having Midori come to your string class?” he was asked. “It was a rare gift. It's something I won't forget. It's like the memory was written in pen and not pencil. It won't easily be erased.” Out of the mouths of babes come wisdom. This boy knew the treasure of time he had been given...it might not come again...it had to be savored and stored.

Memory and time are like a game being played by the trickster coyote. We think we can grab those moments, hold onto them, at least vividly remember them, until poof, we are onto the next remembrance. I try to cushion and preserve my memories via words. This briefly frames those amazing moments in my mind, recolors them in my mental coloring book, but then in the future do I remember to reread, reexamine these words? I have already forgotten so many past events I swore I would never forget. All I have I tell myself are these present happenings.

But this morning as we take a long walk through the lovely falling blossoms and feel the sun peeking through the clouded sky, we walk past these neighborhood apartments and I remember. I remember what lay beneath the current taller, ugly buildings. There on this corner lot was this modest shake-sided house with the sweetest garden. The garden was actually larger than the living quarters with rows of vegetables and flowers, miniature wind mills, castles, animal statues...a garden for the oohs and aahs of children and child-like grown ups passing by. And we did pass by, for I regularly took my daughter and the children from my preschool here as part of our magical neighborhood walks. This memory, the Virginia Woolf “moments of being” do live on, I think, as we round the corner and cross the cemented driveway. And all I have to do is to be aware, to be ready to open my eyes and to hold out my arms to receive all the preciously given gifts.

© 2012