As my son gets ready to graduate, I have spent a little time looking at pictures...
There is something very grounding about looking at pictures. ..
Especially now... these days.
When I was young you looked at albums, and there were only so many of them.
Pictures captured a few moments in time.
Now, you can feel it more.
When I scroll through the computer files which truly only date back to about the year 2000 when digital pictures became big...
I can go year by year, event by event... through thousands and thousands of pictures that seemed in some cases like they represent moments that happened a lifetime ago...
and some moments seem like they were yesterday... and they were 3 or 5 years or 7 years ago.
I look at the pictures and I think to myself that they represent a THIRD of my life... a THIRD of my moments...
A small part of me wishes I had that type of documentation for the first two thirds of my life...
SO MANY MOMENTS THAT I HAVE LOST COMPLETELY FROM MY MIND...
MOST OF THEM...
Looking at pictures
makes me so very conscious of time....
of time passing...
And, a few thoughts cross my mind...
”I have lived an AMAZING life...”
Oh, the places I’ve gone, the locations I’ve seen...
Peru, US, China, Italy, France, Germany, Thailand, Costa Rica, Mexico, Korea, Australia, Japan, Greece, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Canada...
and the sights... beaches and more beaches, mountains, slopes, hills, deserts, coastlines, jungles, islands...
The amazing friends who have shared the journey...
And, the beautiful family that has grown through it...
The amazing food...
“How present have I been through the JOY of it all?”
HOW
PRESENT
HAVE
I
BEEN?
I don’t know why I seem to be particularly bad at remembering things...
moments...
pictures help...
I don’t know if its because I have been so focused on “reaching” a certain place in my life...
Or, why...
But, I struggle to remember.
All of that is disharmony...
And, I don’t linger.
Here is where I do linger...
I am committed to being more present...
and I am every day...
More PRESENT in my moments...
I have sprinted through too much of life...
Two of my three sons will have graduated from high school this week, and won’t have our home as their main address..
Life is sad and joyful...
Time doesn’t wait for us to grow wise...
I understand how precious it is...
It’s not that I move too fast,
it’s that I spend too many of my moments reaching and leaping for the next one...
There is no denying time passing...
There is no denying life passing...
That IS the truth of our each and every moment. ..
The question is, knowing that, what is our greatest WANT in life?
...
As I scroll through the pictures of my life...
As I think about the many, many precious moments, gifts, that I can barely remember...
I am overcome with the desire, the WANT, to linger...
to linger in these words...
in consciousness...
in the silence of this morning...
in the dampness of this rain...
in pain...
in sadness...
in love...
in joy...
in pride...
in wonder...
in the experience...
of this breath...
of THIS moment...
in harmony,
Nestor