Saturday, July 24, 2010

Gratitude

My attitude toward life has been characterized by the constant demand for something had yesterday. But coupled with that discontent has been not genuinely appreciating the past, nor being genuinely open to the future.

So I started just writing down things that are good memories, which I'd marked as bad memories and not thought about. There are sad things mixed in, but when I'm willing to remember the sad things, whole boxes of good memories are brought to light.

Goodbyes are sad for me. Something in me wildly resists the closing of chapters. I guess that's the mark of eternity in my heart, as I deeply long for a place where goodbyes don't mean the end.

So I graduated from college and slammed the lid on the trunk of memories. Way too many goodbyes were in that trunk.

In fact, every living moment is half-goodbye. Hello and goodbye. Like water running over your hand--you may close your hand over a bit of water, but the stream doesn't wait for you to touch every drop; it keeps rolling.

So I've been in constant resentment of the "goodbye" side of living, instead of smiling at the "hello" side. Clutching at the things slipping away, pushing aside the things that are newly appearing. Not even enjoying the sensation of water flowing over my hand, much less jumping in completely.

Sometimes I've taken pains to enjoy the water of life--again, grasping a bit in my hand and holding tightly to it. I sat in a park with a friend who was soon moving away. We sat on a green lawn surrounded by trees and memories, but both of us were painfully, painfully conscious that we were already living in the past. Looking back at that past version of us, I'm embarrassed, like I would be embarrassed looking at someone today who is painfully self-conscious. We were self-conscious of the moment, self-conscious of the fragility of it, the transience, that in just a few minutes it would be over. In all that, we thought we were truly living in the moment, in all our awareness, but in fact we were stepping outside of it. We were rejecting the fleeting pleasure to prove that we did not take our time together for granted. Glorying in the moment, I now think, is not about swallowing and digesting a moment before passing it on, but giving it a big beso and brazo as it flies by. Or maybe lightly touching it, tenderly, as it moves by, but not stroking it to death like the man with the puppy in Of Mice And Men.

My senior year of high school, I traveled to England on winter break. I remember my determination to capture every memory in a journal. This was going to be the trip of a lifetime, and I was going to make sure I didn't forget a moment. How much time I spent each day writing out that day's events, when I could have been living more fully the brief weeks there! Almost an insult to me now--if I open the journal (may I appreciate it more someday!) I merely see a faithful transcription of what I can recall instantly given the right prompting. I do think there is a place for journaling, but now I think more of the journal I kept in Spain--brief reminders, not wasting time writing out the actual memories. Now my idea of a scrapbook is to write down and paste in "keys" which can unlock boxes of memories without being the memories. The former kind of exhaustive journaling reminds me of the conundrum, "If it takes someone ten days to write completely about one day, how long would it take to write about everything in eternity?"

I was so thorough in my documentation of that England trip that I've had little need to remember it. I never reflected much on its scenes, because they were written, and they offered no future pleasure for me. So recalling scenes was more like eating knives and burrs than a pleasant reliving. No, no, I don't mean the memories were bad. I just mean that in general, I grieve what is past and that grief is like eating knives and burrs.

Funny how overdone nostalgia and a sort of bitterness bring about that grief. And how the cure is to remember more, but with joy instead of resentment. Re-joy. Relive the joyous moments, not the sad goodbyes. Shed a tear for the sad ones, but for heaven's sake, remember the funnies! And then en-joy, onward-joy, the "hello"s. En marcha, onward march.

Time sometimes brings things back around full circle, it's nature, and above that, God. But that's it, not grasping or clutching that brings completeness to any experience. This morning I began rejoying, which is a very hands-free way to appreciate the past and enjoy the future.