Project: NOW

My latest project of sorting through my 30 year collection of family photos has had me sequestered in my home for three days. Aside from having to get up to use the bathroom and feeding myself, I've sat in the middle of a pile of photos, envelopes and negatives trying to remember why I took some of those pictures, which photos match which negatives and what years they were taken. I was very excited to find ALL of my children's high school Senior pictures AND their negatives and some old photos that I thought I'd lost.

This was all spawned because I MADE myself do SOMETHING constructive this summer before my vacation time was over. I decided to find all the photos for the remaining 3 years in my daughter's scrapbook I had abandoned back in 2001. Having endless days of doing nothing in particular has it's advantages, but it's better to have endless days of doing something in particular. I finally paused today, after my three day stretch of sorting and re-organizing, to take some negatives to Walgreen's to have some prints made for her book.

As I stepped out into the heat and bright sun, it felt like I was coming out of a cell from the Doctor Who series. http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/ I contemplated why I felt time go so slow and marveled that the world of shoppers and people in traffic had gone on with their lives as usual while I was in my little world. I wondered what it would feel like to live like that all the time. Being in this kind of time warp where your world of Now is an eternity, yet it doesn't seem to be very long at all. It occurred to me that there are people that live like that. Some are elderly people with no one to visit with but their memories. Now becomes their life. It is their eternity. Being in nature or meditating can be other such times.

Being absorbed in my life in pictures for the last 30 years has been good to revisit, almost like a trip to see old friends and relatives that are no longer there. I re-evaluated old choices and was glad they were made. I reviewed old relationships and wished changes could have been made. I became proud of my children for how they've grown and changed and the direction they've chosen to take in their lives. In reflecting how acquaintance's lives have not turned out "happily ever after" has made me ponder the oddity of the thought. Things sometimes happen the way we'd like them to and often they don't. But life moves on. One thing is certain, there will always be change. Our job is to make 'now' better than the last 'now' was.

I've come to a place in my life where I would like to finish and put away old projects in my life and enjoy my life as it is Now. Getting rid of fabric was one. I think I'm done sewing for the most part. Going to school was a new one I started recently, after years of trying to get it truly underway. I'm done carrying sentimental things around with me. They are meant to be enjoyed and then to pass them on. One habit I'd like to change is my diet.

Now, whether an eternity or a moment, is a lovely place to be. It's like the movie Insurrection. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNw3BFpOFnI&feature=related There is a scene where Anij tells Picard to shush and just enjoy the moment as it slows and they literally see the pollen blow off a flower and see a hummingbird's wing flap softly and a waterfall look white and streamy.

Anij: Have you ever experienced, a perfect moment in time?
Captain Picard: A perfect moment?
Anij: When time seemed to stop, and you could almost live, in that moment.
Captain Picard: Seeing my home planet from space, for the first time.
Anij: Yes. Exactly. Nothing more complicated than perception.
Anij: ...We've discovered that a single moment in time can be a universe in itself, full of powerful forces. Most people aren't aware enough of the now to even notice.

My moment in time took three days, but I reviewed 30 years. I savored what it was. When tomorrow becomes Now I will try to notice what it offers. It's all in our perception.