Just A Moment

A moment is an infinitesimally small amount of time. It really is a difficult thing to capture and measure because it does not remain. We use the word “moment” all the time, one example being the title of this bit of writing.   Give me a moment, it all happened in a moment, life can change in a moment.   

The current zeitgeist in the world of psychobabble is “The Power of Now.”  In other words, stay present in the moment.  The ever-fleeting moment. Don’t borrow sorrow or regret from the past, and don’t be anxious for what is not yet here. There is wisdom of course in the power of now... it keeps us grounded to stay focused on what is ever before us.  My personal belief, and it has been one for a long time (lol) .... is that time is not a real thing, but a simple perceptual construct that keeps us safe and sane.  It is also a training mechanism. We have memories of moments of course. I can recall specific and sometimes exact moments in time...albeit like most of us, I generally recall in chunks of time, but there are things that I know hinged on a moment.  A first kiss. The conception of a child. A fast and stunning epiphany.  Ice on the river cracking. The ding of a life changing text notification.  The final glimmer of light in a loved one’s eyes... going dark. 

Moments.   

Breathe now and be still. 

Just for a moment. 

I was recently, as part of a health assessment (presumably for old people) asked to draw a clock and demonstrate the time of 11:10. I passed, if any of you dear readers are worried. But it struck me that we make judgements about one another’s brain health based on our ability to identify time.  11:10 is an exact moment.  My crude drawing certainly doesn’t do it justice.  My long hand is just past the center of the 2 and had my practitioner been a metaphysical master, she most likely would have failed me because of my drawing.   

We tend to move much too fast, particularly in the American culture.  We expect things to happen quickly, if not instantly.  I do at least.  The line in the grocery store, the guy going 45 in a 50 speed zone, the non-native English speaker in another country on the end of a “customer service” line.  Click. Click. Click.  Get on with it.... get to the next.... moment.   

Or not.  

Now I don’t have that many moments left at this point in the run of Connie Kimble on earth.  WHY would I want to speed up? It’s a pity I didn’t learn this at an early age.  I would have held those times with my young children with a gentler slower mind.  I’d have listened longer more intently to the words of my mother telling a story, drawing out the interaction to a snail’s pace. I would have held that beautiful movement of my dog’s hair while stroking him, more carefully.  I would have gone to that lunch with friends, though I didn’t have “time.  

Even now... I gaze out the window for a bit - at blackbirds, and sparrows, and a lone crow perched on the cottonwoods above the riverbank....  a flock of geese wing their way downriver.   Stunning beauty that never ends 

Gaze 

Sit 

Breathe 

Heaven is in the moments.  

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8