I don’t know all the secrets of the great writers. But I know the secret of life. James Taylor sings about it in the song the Secret of Life. What is the secret but to enjoy the moment you’re in this instant.
You are probably thinking, just as I have, “but I’m not really enjoying this minute in my dentists’ chair.” I do know that I have spent great pieces of my life dreaming of what the future will bring, instead of living in the now. The memories I recall are those times that I was fully engaged and enjoying, or not enjoying, but I was in the moment.
I know I’m not the only one who can get home and realize I don’t remember the drive there. I was zoned out. (What does that mean?) I wasn’t paying attention. I wasn’t there. I’d tell you if I remembered.
When I write it requires that I be fully engaged in the process, even if the moment is surreal, as if I am plugged into some other place. I remember writing SOTD in long hand. My sister had surgery and I was there with her for the several days she spent in the hospital. For two days straight she couldn’t stand the light in her room. So I sat in a chair next to her bed with only one tiny sliver of light. I maneuvered until it let me see what I was writing. The story was ready to fall out of my brain and through the pen. In the first four or five days I wrote the majority of that book. I can remember being confined, and yet completely attentive to the story. (And my sister)
And what of reading? Is it a false moment? I have read books that will stay in my memories until I die. Novels with characters and stories so real that are told to us in words as opposed to events to which we bear witness. In reading a book are we neglecting life. Am I not engaged in my life because I am engaged in a world between two covers?
I don’t know the absolute answer to that, because it is a question for each individual. I was talking to a friend at work today, who was telling me about not being able to read anything until summer was over. She said it took her a long time to read a book, because she only had time while the laundry was in the dryer. It seemed so odd to me, because I can read a book in a few short or long hours, depending on the length. The idea of waiting weeks or even months to know the end of the story was a foreign thought for me, not if the ending id at the end of the pages I have in my hand.
Is she totally engaged in her life and I am a poor pathetic creature who lives vicariously through words on a page? Probably. I also enjoy many things in my life. I think I finally grew up when I could enjoy the silence and being alone without feeling like I needed someone else there to share the experience. She is totally involved in the lives of her young children, she is engaged as a parent. I hope when her children are older, that she finds the time to enjoy a book, and the silence.
I like to take the time to savor the coffee, scent the rain filled air and feel the rug between my toes. And if I can have a good conversation with someone I love in the process then I am very happy and content. I enjoy reading and writing. I am in the moment, whatever I am doing in that particular moment.
Tell me being in your moments.
Rhianna
