Moment by Moment

The other day, while I was thoroughly enjoying another monthly massage (I'd so rather pay a membership fee to Massage Envy than the gym!) my mind began to wander. Like when I'm driving and suddenly I find myself five miles down the road and don't remember getting there? Like that. But I hate when that happens during a massage. I want to relish every blessed minute of soothing muscle relief, and that requires that I be totally present. "In the moment" my college acting coach called it. That ability to live in the present, to be completely focused on what is happening right now, is a quality that makes a great actor, but I have also learned that it also makes a great mother, a great friend, a great daughter, a great sister, and a great spouse as well. I know this. I just wish I were better at it.

It is impossible to be in the moment for every moment of my life, but it is what I strive for. Sadly, more often than not, I find it just out of reach behind the to-do lists of my life. My undisciplined mind runs forward to all the things I need to do, making it difficult to relish the present. Being in the moment is just as impossible when I am months and years away, drifting backward in time, wistfully remembering all the things I've done or, worse yet, all the things I missed doing. Regret has the ability to poison even the best moments.

When I find myself outside of the present, I give myself a little shake and try to remember how to get back there. I try to listen. I'm so easily distracted. My favorite people in the world make me feel like I'm the only person in the room; they listen that well. I know that if I'm really focused on not only what the other person is saying, but also on what they are feeling, most of the work is already done.

So what if no one is saying anything at all? Then I focus on the senses. What is it that I'm experiencing? Hearing? Smelling? Feeling? Seeing? On really great occasions, I try to take a mental picture.

Sometimes that requires that I ignore the moment stealers--or all the stuff that tries to take me someplace else. Like this afternoon. I love rocking my baby to sleep. It is a sweet moment of grace in an otherwise mundane day. Today I ignored the unmade bed and the pile of laundry waiting to be put away. Instead I forced myself to look past it to the window where outside the sun was illuminating the tree top against the light blue sky. I felt the weight of the baby's head on my arm, his hand holding tightly to my shirt front. I smelled him, that heady scent of baby lotion and newborn skin. I watched his lips pucker around his pacifier and his eyes flutter closed, his eyelashes thick and dark. Ignoring the ringing phone downstairs, I listened instead to the whirring of the overhead fan and the otherwise quiet of the house, briefly silent for a few minutes more until the bus arrived bringing the kiddos home from school.

How many moments of grace like these do I overlook because the essence of me is elsewhere, wishing, regretting, planning, or worrying? Admittedly, there are things to plan for, to-do lists to cross off, and I'm not against sentiment, but I pose the question: Is it possible to live life without really experiencing it? I think so. What a shame it would be to miss so much of this one ride on the merry-go-round. Life is made up of precious moments. I intend to live in them.