Reliving the moment
I was up for a good part of the night and I had quite an extraordinary experience in the wee hours. I went back to a year ago. Actually, a year ago this coming weekend. Maya and I took time together, just the two of us to be on an adventure in and around Provincetown. During the hours in which I was trying to get back to sleep, I revisited each moment from last year’s journey. I could really practically feel it.
It was if the conversations, the looks, the laughs, the movements, the choices we made were all deeply imprinted in my being. This is a weekend that I didn’t journal about. I did not have that chance to. But the movie we saw, the moon-rise we witnessed, the seals we marveled at, the hours of teaching/ learning to long board, rocks we hopped, meals we ate, puns we created, shops we wandered, food shows we watched on T.V., miles on the road we journeyed, talks we had about Maya’s future, are so very embedded.
I spoke with a friend about this experience earlier. There is something to be said about being very present and in the moment. In the moment, I cherished those moments with Maya. And now, I still do cherish those moments. I guess that is ultimately what we have. The moment.
Cape Cod, September 26 and 27, 2015
P.S. I would love hearing about a moment you’d like to share (no pressure, though).
Elise, such a great teaching for all of us about remembering to be in the moment and record it all in our beings. I want to add that Maya was reliving that with you, in that other realm where she now resides – my belief anyway.
As you and I discussed the other day, I have been reliving the time I spent with her a year ago (or a Jewish year ago anyway), leading up to the High Holidays: coming to your house to go over the verses she was preparing to chant on Rosh Hashanah with her, and then standing by her side when she chanted them from Torah, so proud of her. This year I will stand by your side as you chant in her honor and memory.
With all my love,
Bonnie
How beautiful. I look forward to being under the tent with you there by my side in honor of that moment and Maya.
My father’s death was like this. I can bring back every moment of it. I remember so vividly those few hours in the ICU. Also every hunt, every deer I’ve shot, every sanctuary I’ve carved in the woods while hunting, may all be recalled viscerally. Curiously, I can also bring back the sensations and feeling of walking in the Machane Yehudah (outdoor covered produce market) in Jerusalem – maybe because it is captured in the smells of food. A few moments of Sage’s birth, too, but it is clouded by pain.
Perhaps pain and loss, death and grief sharpen our memories . . . or grant a different kind of memory. The past crystallizes into an essence that we can almost hold in our hand, or wear as a jewel.
I too look forward to standing with you beside the Torah on Rosh Hashanah. I’m reading on the second day this year. I find the HH cantillations so expansive, like the pristine air on top of a mountain.
Love you dear woman. Maybe see you in dance class tonight.
dyb
What a stunning image, Yael, to wear the crystallized past as a jewel. I treasure these jewels.
I have a photo of me at about age 6 and my yougest brother who was about to be a toddler. We are in our pj’s .. The flannel ones my mom made for all of us. It must have been a Saturday morning because I remember this moment and there was no scurrying for school or church. I had just been carrying him around and had placed him in the canvas butterfly chair in the living room where he looks like a smiling egg in a nest. He was too big and heavy for me but I loved to carry him because his head, with the soft blond hair, smelled so good. He was so affectionate. It is over 50 years ago but I can still smell his head, the back of his baby neck. I have this photo on an electronic picture frame in my kitchen so it pops up regularly, of course imprintng the memory only deeper. I have taken my favorites of the old family snaps and digitized them so that I see them regularly. When I first did it..the digitzing..I worried that it would be too painful to see them in regular rotation. But as I age, I am grateful for them because the memories of love and happiness are for me a tonic to the painful parts. Sometimes, for me, the happy parts can be too easy to forget; they get crowded out by the knot in the throat, the sad dream at night. But then a smiling picture comes by and it makes it easier for me to take the next breath.
“…the memories of love and happiness are for me a tonic to the painful parts.” How beautiful and true. And yes, the smell of the his head. I was actually going to talk about the smell of that hotel! It’s fascinating how it all sticks.
Love you,
E.
Xoxox
Elise!
You are such an inspiration!
I just wanted you to know that I think about you a lot! I send you a big hug, especially on October 2nd.
Love, Jen