This is all happening at once isn’t it? This life we have here on earth isn’t unfolding…it’s all happening in a single moment.
I’ll try to explain what I mean but may not pull it off. I was looking at my gut…which I don’t like very much. It’s not completely out of hand but a bit outside the lines of the skinny rock star look I like. (Was that just a tad intimate for something like this? I may be a bit too open. Nah!)
I looked at myself in the mirror and thought, “I’m going to get rid of this little spare tire.” Almost instantly I started thinking about something I read in The Complete Conversations with God
When I heard myself think “I’m going to get rid of my gut,” I understood almost immediately what “God” was saying. If I am “going” to do or have something I’ll never get there. That implies something that is in the future… which never comes. We never reach that future point because the future…like the past…exists only in our brains. What’s happening now is all there ever really is. (Eckhardt Tolle fans know all about this.)
I used to have a perfectly flat stomach…which is a memory from the past. I’m going to have a flat stomach again…a vision of the future. Right now I’m in between those two places which is reality…or so we think.
Is a memory any less real because we can’t reach out and touch it? Isn’t a hope or dream the beginning of a new NOW? Don’t all the individual moments of our lives add up to little more than a blink? Push all that stuff together and here we are…in this spot…so it’s all happening at once.
My flat…insanely chiseled belly is already here because this moment is always happening. (OK…insanely chiseled may be a stretch and just saying that means it won’t be. I’m good with that.)
I have another example that I hope clears things up for both of us.
The Year of Living Aimlessly
It was a year ago today that I took Laura to the hospital for the last time. She left our house feeling weak and tired…able to speak just a few sentences by sheer will power. 2 days later I brought her back home. She said a few choppy words on our way out of the hospital which was the last time I would hear her voice. That was a year ago but it might as well have been a sentence ago.
I will never see her again except in my head. She will never say something new to me…or make me laugh…or angry…or less fearful. It’s a been a whole f-ing year and I can still hear her last words…our last playful moment together…as clear and real as if it was happening now. And for those brief moments…when I let myself remember…it IS happening now…and it will always be that way.
I’m starting to view life as one singular moment and less of a journey. A journey has a beginning, middle, and end all made up of individual moments along the way. But who’s to say when one moment ends and another moment begins? (I know…we do…but how many times have you changed your mind about that?) It’s all lumped together I think. Everything is happening now…all at once…because we remember and hope in one single moment which is THIS one. That’s what is real in my book.
I guess that’s as close as I can come to trying to explain what I mean.
My favorite 30 seconds you have written…..
Thanks, Dude. I know you’re not one to comment so it must have said something to you. That’s cool. (Guess it wasn’t as dumb as I thought it was…)
i am not sure why you are a jeweler…i think you should be a writer! it took me so long to understand what echart tolle was saying…as soon as michael died i knew exactly what he was saying…and i know what you are saying…all we have is this moment…my grand-daughters have taught me so much about living in the moment…if i didn’t live in the moment now with michael being gone i would go crazy…we had so many plans…we were enjoying our life together and for that i am grateful….keep those thoughts coming andy! your words are always so helpful to me!
thanks!
Writing doesn’t pay the bills but I’m glad you like what I say, Alaine. It’s very nice of you to say and it makes me feel like I’m not just talking to myself
The now thing is so pivotal…and I honestly am not happy how I came to the realization…but here we are…and it helps. (Especially when life kicks you in the face.) I don’t know if we’re lucky or not…doesn’t feel like it…but something tells me down the road we’re going to feel that way.
Thanks again, Alaine. Hang in there…and I’ll do the same…
Shrek is sitting next to me, right here in my sunroom
I don’t know what to say Andy but that I love your last posts…so honest and sad, yes, sadness is beautiful too, let it wash over you, don’t look at it as if there is something you need to learn or go through, just let it be what it is.
And about the time relation thing, I hear ya. Of course its a messed up thing, our whole perception of beginning and end has formed so much of our view on life and perhaps that is what makes it so difficult to accept change too…because we look “back” at things and “forward” to things and just like you say, we try so hard to “get there” but all we get is the experience of wanting, of waiting, of longing…
I know this doesn’t come even close to what you are experiencing, but I’m gonna share a little story (don’t tell anyone
this is only the internet right) I used to love someone real hard (a part of me still does) and I pictured our whole life together (I think we both did). We built a foundation of dreams for many years which didn’t physically come true, although a part of me sometimes think of that “future” as a side track that “happened forever”, but just not here and now. And HERE/NOW is the only place I can fully be. I choose most often though to take the experience of both the “past” and that “future” with me because I hold those emotions, that drama so dear and I am not ready to let go of it (it serves my poetic writing 
And so yes, it weighs. But to quote Story People (that you might have seen sometime on my blog)…
“This is a giant block of whatever is most difficult to carry, and trust me on this, you’ll carry it more times than you can count, until you decide that’s excactly what you want to carry, and then it won’t weigh a thing anymore”
This experience will always be a part of your life. Embrace it!
/your friend Helen
(“You can heal your life” is a good book/movie too btw…:)
.-= Helen´s last blog ..Btw- I love my life! =-.
Helen you remain one of the coolest people I’ve ever met. (We are absolutely going to meet someday…) I’ll keep your story a secret;). Thank you for sharing it. A) I’m going to sit and think about the quote. B)I’m going to download that book right away. You haven’t steered me wrong yet. I know all about having dreams and plans…with someone you love…and having them go away…even as you continue to hope that somehow…some way…they’ll still materialize. That whole “wanting” thing makes life a chore most times doesn’t it. I’ve wanted so many things in my life and many of them have come true. I’ll bet it’s the same for you. Maybe we should remind ourselves of that, huh?
I want you to know that your comment came at just the right for me today. Thanks for that. Stay cool…
A
Can’t wait for you to read the book or watch the movie (your choice) I actually thought you knew about it already but to be honest I’m a little glad you didn’t…;) because now it might come to you at the right time, in the right way. Take care over there!!
.-= Helen´s last blog ..Btw- I love my life! =-.