YESTERDAY IS TOMORROW IN REVERSE

Light Between the Trees / 2022 / Photo by Russell C. Smith

There’s been all this talk about living in the moment lately. Lately, meaning the past 20 years. The morning sun shines brightly, and our culture is drenched in mindfulness. Yet, as we know, experientially knowing something is the absolute best way for anything to make sense. Sometimes we mindfully wake up. Our mind is completely switched on. And in the best working order ever. Lists. Ideas. Words. Insights. Connections. Vivid visions. Ultra-sublime, and flowing outwards in mellifluous recognizable patterns. Like a remembered melody written into forest shadow memories. There are moments, and yes, even whole days when you’re attuned to the mystery of being alive in this world. Watching spiders spin, and hearing wind push against treetops. Every so often, you see a living list floating in front of your face. It’s easy-peasy on a good day to slip into a feeling of superhuman mindfulness, where nothing phases you. While deep inside the now state, you’re not going to be pulled into any annoying or anger-inducing past loops of memories. You’re in the place where clouds drift through your mind, and they’re the fluffy kind. We’re as present as a mountaintop meditator, with a high-tech storage unit in their cave. Then, there are the days when being aware and in the moment is like asking us to jump out of an airplane wearing no parachute. On those days, living in the moment is as easy as performing open heart surgery on yourself, with plastic utensils. We long for future states of now, usually missing the nearly perfect one in front of our noses. Serendipity sings through our veins when and where it wants to. What helps the serendipitous to happen, you ask. Being fully present in each moment. If you’re asked what time it is, the time is always now.