This Present Moment

"All eternity is in the moment." Mary Oliver

This morning, as I got out of my car to go into the school where I teach, I stopped and listened. The cool morning air of March was full of the sounds of Cardinals, Eastern Bluebirds, Carolina Chickadees, Northern Mockingbirds, Carolina wrens, Chipping Sparrows, Brown Thrashers, American Robins, House Sparrows and Brown-headed Nuthatches. I did not rush inside but just stood there, enjoying this moment that will never, ever come again. I stood there, eyes closed, just savoring this glorious soundscape of birdsong.

Reality exists only in this intense, fleeting moment that holds our poetic reality or what T.S. Eliot calls “the still point of the turning world.”

In just such moments of tender beauty and brace, I love this rich, wide, surprising world. When I opened my eyes again, I looked up at the muted palette of the early morning sky, not yet clothed in glorious reds and golds.

After I went inside and settled myself at my desk, I took out my commonplace journal and a collection of poetry. I read my poem for the moment and just allowed the words to sink in. From making and drinking my coffee, to listening to the birdsong and gazing at the early morning sky, to sitting at my desk reading a poem before my students arrived, these helped root and imbue me in the complexity of beauty and wonder.

When my students began to arrive, one little girl came up to me, her eyes full of worry and her voice full of this anxiety. “Mr. Blackwell,” she began, “are we at war?”

“What? What makes you say this?” I ask.

“Someone on the bus said we’re at war. Are we? Are we in danger?”

One thing I never do is talk down to children. Nor do I hide reality from them. Instead, I said, “While we’re not at war, there are conflicts in other parts of the world. But you know what we can do?”

“What?” she asked.

“Care for each other. Look after each other. Be there for each other,” I answered.

“Can I have a hug,” she asked and my answer is always, “Of course you can.”

In such times, we must be present to the worries, fears and anxieties of others. To listen with our ears and hearts. To offer consolations, such as simply listening, giving a hug, or telling someone, “I am here for you.” To be in this present moment is to be in it no matter how cozy or uncomfortable.

I think about the time I spend with my Father, who has dementia. I watch as his memory unspools and he is left with less and less of his identity, his own story slipping away from him, leaving him with less and less of self. It makes me wonder: what is the essence of self when that is being stripped from someone?

To sit with him in the loss of self is not always easy or comfortable. Sometimes we just sit and watch local news. Other times, I pull out an old photo album and show it to him. When he cannot remember who the photos are of, I simply say something like, “Look at your Dad in this one” or “There’s Uncle Bill.” He nods in the fading of understanding. I feel sad at seeing this man grow smaller and smaller, lesser and lesser. Love and being present simply means to be his memory, his recollections, his reminders of self.

My Father is a reminder of this temporal life. Even in those difficult moments, they still show me the immensity of this very instant. Too often in our search for meaning, we don’t stop to see that it is there before us.

Often, when I leave the assisted living home where my Father is, I stop and listen to the birds. I breathe in the air and listen. And I think of what the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote to her husband, Robert Browning, “Why, what is to live? Not to eat and drink and breathe,— but to feel the life in you down all the fibres of being, passionately and joyfully.”

Yes, that is why I live.