Getting Down To It

I'm amazed that nearly two years have passed since I've posted here. It felt like only a few months. This, it would seem, is how life goes. Just as my parents and grandparents said it would.... you blink at 17 and you're 65, which is exactly what's happened. At this writing, I'm 5 months into it. My half-fare metrocard that says "Senior Citizen" continues to shock me.

Me, 1964, sitting on the back bumper of (I'm told) a 1957 Pontiac, traveling down to D.C. for a March on Washington.
The Civil Rights Act was about to be passed, and I was about to turn 17.

But here's an interesting thing — an awareness bubbling up out of the turning of the years; the continued self-reflection; the growing belief in forces, powers, and Spirits greater than myself: when I am standing squarely in this moment, my relationship to time changes completely. There is no regret over roads taken or not, no concern about how long something will need in order to get accomplished, how even more senior I'll be by the time I get there. A life composed of one moment following the next becomes timeless. The more times I experience timelessness, the fewer times I'll blink my life away.

What I also know is that as often as others have said things like this — Thich Nhat Hanh, Pema Chodron, all the Wisdom teachers I've been privileged to read, hear, receive transmission from — until Present Moment awareness arrived in me, it was only ever an idea to me. Mostly, I thought it might be a bogus bit of mind game.

And so, I understand now that some things can be described, but "getting it" is a completely individual matter. What I know to say about this is that with just the right combination of books read, relationships had, diapers changed. bills paid, dishes washed, meals cooked or ordered, with just the perfect blend of miracles observed and experiences of wonder, well, one day you could be folding laundry, answering email, or cleaning the cat box and you realize you're neither old nor young. You simply are and you've gotten down to it — this business of being fully alive.

Bright blessings on that moment when it comes!