A Tricky Dance

I like perspective.
Arriving by plane in a new city, I like seeing the little houses and tiny cars and blue coin-sized swimming pools. It always makes me feel a certain flavor of “right” and until yesterday I didn’t understand why that is.
Perspective.
The magic that happens when we shift our point of view, the place from where we look at what’s going on.
Of course, we know this and my one and only tattoo reminds me of it every day. But a few days ago, the knowing got deeper and a bit more detailed, complete with a one-line instruction manual.
I will try and share what I glimpsed.
I was looking at a photo from eight years ago. I was recognizing the feelings of the time, the smells even. The flavor. The way the air felt and the texture of the story that was wrapped like a sheer scarf around all of it.
With one foot in that photograph and another in my today-life, I was somehow able to access the in-between, the dash between that date, and today’s date. In that space, lots of moments, lots of meals, worries, joys, planning, moves, people, lots of life. All of it part of my novel, just as today is.
Being able to feel both - and especially the dash - felt weird and came with a knowing that if I just sat with it, something good was going to show up.
I did sit with it, trying to not rush what was coming, not invent it either. I have learned that when Life wants to talk with me, patience is sometimes the price of admission.
It showed up in my morning pages.
On the paper, an invitation to “a tricky dance.”
I wrote:
“Demote the importance of each moment while heightening the importance of each moment.”
It sounds complicated and a little bit kooky, but I got it. In my body first, then in my mind. I took it for a test drive throughout the day and I felt its Gift, its wisdom.
Demote the importance of each moment:
Don’t let the dead car battery, the woman moving so slowly behind the counter, or the worry of the day take up a lot of space. See them, dance with them, and exercise some excellent boundaries. Do not believe them when they tell you that they are so very, very important. They are not. They are not and the way we know this is that at this time next week, we are very likely to not remember their names. Instead, we will have moved on to a new set of moments trying to pass themselves off as very, very important. I read a phrase once: “What was your Big Problem three Big Problems ago?” Demote the importance of each moment.
Heighten the importance of each moment:
Simply put, be present. Feel the steering wheel under your hands, your dog’s fur, and the way it is coarse here and soft there. Listen, truly listen to your friend as she tells about herself, delight in the way the soap glides on your belly in the shower, and dare to be fully present for the times when your heart cracks open and you hurt sharply. This level of presence is our high-quality response to life. Each time we use it, we add a fresh layer of richness to our experience, one which will not vanish with time, but instead ripen and deepen. This, we will remember with our minds, our bodies, and maybe even with our cells. Heighten the importance of each moment.
It’s not easy. Simple is not always easy. But it is doable and I believe very much worth practicing. A re-adjustment of sorts, a new habit. A re-organizing and also an act of rebellion: Imagine arriving at a meeting and instead of complaining about how slowly the woman moved behind the counter you spoke about how soft your dog’s fur is behind his ears?
That’s a personal revolution. Possibly contagious.