Lately, I’ve been thinking about how much we all live in the future or even in the past. That is, most of the time we’re not where we think we are. We’re planning for this, arranging for that, filling our appointment books and ipads with people and events that are yet to come. We pine for the good old days, a lost love or opportunity. We’re either one step ahead of ourselves, thinking of what will or might happen, or we’re living in a world that no longer exists except in memory.
In this moment, I feel the colors of living life outside my window. The gingko tree throws down golden, silken fans…but only after it pummels us with its soft, rounded fruit that smells of garbage. A glorious irony, deserving appreciation.
A nearby redbud tree lets loose her red beauties, giving them to the wind; yet one leaf, a dusty and diminished brown, has held on through the second winter storm. Deserted by all her colorful hoodies, she remains held fast by a sliver of silk web, and I celebrate her as I walk beneath the twisted branches. The leftover snow is filled with wind-blown designs if we look closely.
All this is to say each moment of life is special, extraordinary, never to be held for long. Stay with it, relish all of it, for it will soon be carried away into the past along with our wishful-thinking selves.
