There are certain moments in our everyday humans lives that may strike us as extraordinary. It could be anything really.
Of course, there are the big things that happen. The momentous events we will never forget. When you step away and say, “What the Holy Heck just happened?”
Like those kayakers up in Alaska, watching a monstrous glacier collapse right before them. (video below) Or maybe being in a tornado. Or a car wreck. Or something along those lines. There are those moments too, which are happier. The birth of a child, or a wedding day. A graduation. Those are the large occasions. We expect all of those to leave a mark.
Life, though, is a big bag of Chex Mix. Put a hand in the bowl, and you grab up a wide array of snacky-stuff. Some of it, you love. But there are other pieces you would throw back in the bowl, if no one was watching. If you are lucky, you get one of those perfectly little coated peanuts.
Those are the ones. The minutes that are little, and somehow, they strike you in a tremendous way. Yesterday, I was thinking of my little dog Maxine. Max. She died more than two years ago. But there I was in the kitchen, cutting some fruit, and a specific memory of her came back like lightning. I could see it as clear as I saw the melon I was slicing. And it overwhelmed me to tears.
It might be the line from The Third Act of a play written by Thornton Wilder. Written more than 81 years ago. It goes, “There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being.”
I believe that Mr. Wilder had that right. There is something eternal about each one of us. Way down deep.
That’s the reason these moments come and go for us. Some slide away, and we will never see them again. They will pass us by like many of the other 48-million minutes of our lives. But then there are those few. That cling on to us like the dryer sheet on the inside of our pants leg. We don’t even know it is there, until we are in the middle of a busy restaurant and it falls out of nowhere, when we least expect it. Those little moments, the grab on to the “something eternal” that’s in each one of us.
In so many ways, we are the creators of our own lives. In every minute we have a choice, or millions of choices. The outcome is what stays with us. We can fill them with anger, or disdain, or resentment. Or. When we are being our better selves, we can show those moments peace, or kindness, or understanding. Either way, some of those moments will roll back around, as they do. We can increase our chances of remembering the good ones, if we fill them up that way. In that part of us that touches the eternal.
========
“You are never alone. You are eternally connected with everyone.”
― Amit Ray, Meditation
=========
“It’s all a series of serendipities
with no beginnings and no ends.
Such infinitesimal possibilities
Through which love transcends.”
― Ana Claudia Antunes
===========
“Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.”
― Benjamin Spock
==========