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| Garden Chair, Steve Brown 2023 |
I sit at my drafting table and look out my open sliding glass door into my garden. It's late afternoon. Up front, the rose bush and peach tree up are heavy with shadow. There is an old wooden chair with chipped red paint. Yellow black-eyed Susans and violet cosmos beyond sway gently. All of this is muted softly by the shade. Then, just as the garden beds meet the gravel pathway, a cluster of sunflowers catches the evening light, isolated again by heavy shadow thrown behind. Distant dogs bark. Outside, the fountain gurgles. Inside, the fridge hums. Two worlds mingle.
I have lived my entire life in moments like this. I've existed during a lot of other times as well. But I have only truly lived in these jeweled vignettes. When I look back on my life, these are the images and sounds I remember. From the time I was five, I have known light and shadow is all I really needed. This is my purpose. Of that, I had no doubt. I couldn't have expressed it. But I knew it. Being is its own reason to exist. Moments are everything.
I lost my way though. Oh, how I lost it. Because I listened to other voices. Voices that were pragmatic and well-intended. Cowardly voices from those who feared for my well-being because what they really feared for was their own well-being. Fear ruled their lives, so it had to rule mine as well--because that's all they knew. That's alright. I get it. I have my own fears that I probably push off on others as well. However, the fear that there is a limited supply of happiness, that only a few can obtain it, and that life is a scramble to get your position and secure that income while you can--for me, that fear was not inborn. It had to be taught. Like so many I was taught to dream big as a child, and by the time I was eighteen, trade all that in for practicality. Everything inside me resisted that there is anything more important in this life than just being, so I didn't negotiate the two worlds well.
I still don't. I've learned there is a time to feed Mammon. If you don't, like those who worried about me when I was younger feared, it can indeed devour you.
But I already knew what was real for me when I was five. It was out my backdoor, out my window, in my yard. It didn't matter what door, what window, or what yard. As long as there was light and shadow and reasonably clean air, I was in a moment, and I was born to spend an eternity there.
I knew it on the Avenues of Salt Lake City, when on a way to my friend's house, I crouched down near the sidewalk to watch an ant move across a section of chipped concrete. It must have been early morning. The sun was low, and the ant moved across pebbles that were like boulders to him, and what drew me, what made me crouch down, were the great shadows thrown by these little bitty pebbles and this little bitty ant. Amazing.
I knew it on a cold winter's day on a ranch in Cache Valley when a hard slant of light ignited the rust on the hood of a dark green cattle truck otherwise buried in eighteen inches of crusty snow. Glowing icicles dangled from mirrors, fenders and running board. Damn, I knew it.
I knew it in college, hiking high in Rocky Mountain National Park with a friend, when I saw two college girls sitting on a big boulder, squinting at the sun, golden light playing with thin strands of their hair and warming the front of their bare legs, honey skin dipping into these very rugged boots just above their ankles. I was so shy then, even more than now. Yet, I knew a moment when I saw it. With a giant camcorder over my shoulder, I worked up the courage, walked up to them and said, "If you don't mind, can I film you sitting in the light like that?" They were beautiful. No doubt about it. But what caught my attention was the squinting into the sun--that human desire to see the light touch an object and render it into something more, which in this case, was the ridge of a snowcapped peak. Through their squinted eyes I could see their amazement, and I knew they were feeling that same awe looking at the ridge as I was feeling looking at them. To be. There is no question there. To not be only arises when we lose focus of the fact we exist to be blown away. When we are solid in our primary purpose, we are solid. It's when we start worrying about what others think--how to make an impression, whether we're good enough, whether we have enough and are making our mark, fulfilling some notion of legacy--that we become lost.
When we stick to the moment--tune ourselves into whatever task is at hand, focus on the thing or person before us totally... In those moments, everything is absolutely right--even if the person we're giving our attention to is sort of an ass. Try it. Next time someone is hassling you. Step back. Observe the scene. What's happening outside the blinds. The light on their face. The way their lips are moving. The expression in their eyes. Don't react to it; just observe. Your anger, your hate--at least for that moment--will be gone. You will know better what they need.
I seldom remember to do this, but when I do, it does work. It has to. You cannot observe something closely and not become part of it. As a teenager, we often call that connection love. I observe she has cute little freckles on the side of her nose and I'm in love. What I really am is connected. That that feels so powerful that I label it love is okay. Connection is why we're here.
Light is essential. I have a pot of vincas hanging from a wrought-iron chandelier from Mexico that I turned into a planter. Right now, those blossoms are on fire. For me, the joy I see looking at that is what matters. Why would I let so much in my life steal that away from me? I do, but not as much as I used to. I am slowly learning. Long gone are the big addictions. The alcohol, the pornography. Now it is the smaller distractions. Mostly laziness, numbness, and petty distractions that keep me from being me.
I write to remember what I knew so long ago: I live in this moment only. I exist elsewhere. I have to. We all have to. The world nags at us. It has to. There are bills to pay. Mouths to feed. We must give that beast it's due. It will not die. But it doesn't need near as much of our lives as we willingly feed it. It asks for a tiny bit of us, and we rush into its gaping mouth, yelling "Devour me!" So, it does.
As a teacher, even at the high school level, I will occasionally have a student come up to tell someone stole their pencil. I hand them a pencil and give the best advice I know: "Do you really want to reduce your life to a pencil?"
I don't always follow my advice. I often reduce my life to feeling I need to teach someone a lesson or express my sense of injustice at them cutting in line, but when I do, I'm not truly in the moment, and I may be existing, but I'm clearly not living because who wants to spend their life reacting to crap that doesn't matter when life is swirling gloriously all around you?
Yet, we do. We give huge amounts of our lives away to the great nada, or in other words, our stupid egos trying to insulate us from the vitality of existence.
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