Being Awake Throughout the Journey

I’m sitting in the quasi-comfortable Southwest Airlines waiting chairs at Austin Bergstrom International Airport – big, imitation leather armchairs with outlets for all your electronic toys – watching people walk this way and that, to the gates that will lead them to the planes that will fly them to their destinations. A woman walks by, with a baby in a Baby Bjorn harness strapped on her front. The baby is about four or five months old, and is looking around, wide-eyed, at all the people that rush past.

“I remember that time,” I think. I had Diego strapped to one of those things during much of our first trip to Santo Domingo together, back in 2003. It occurs to me that, challenging though it was, that was a lovely time in life – a lovely “moment.”

Recently, by way of a two-day professional development session I attended, I made the acquaintance of a number of older parents with grown-up, or close to grown-up, children. This one’s in college, this one will be a senior in high school next year. The other one is about to make their mama and daddy grandparents for the first time.

“Wow,” I usually remark, “that must blow your mind.”

Almost everyone admits that time has flown to this point. The blink of an eye, one told me in heavily-accented “Texan.” She’s from a part of Texas I politely pretend to have heard of before.

Others say things like “You wake up one morning and they’re grown.” It’s the same idea.

Whatever the comment, I’m always left with a feeling of wishing time could slow down. But it’s not about that. It’s really about me taking care of myself and my business in a manner that allows me to be present in every single moment. As you might have noticed, I am prone to sentimentalism and “yearning.” I need to train myself (or get some help from someone else) to be better at being “in the moment,” as my acting teachers used to say.

“Waking up one day” implies sleeping through part of this journey. Life is too precious. I don’t want to sleep through it. So if you catch me “napping” (metaphorically speaking that is, as in missing out on key moments in my life and the lives of my kids), by all means, nudge, slap or pinch me. Just do whatever you can as my friend/family/loved one to help me enjoy every step of the way.

What's YOUR Definition of "Enjoyment"?

“Time keeps on slippin,’ slippin,’ slippin,' into the future.”

-- Steve Miller Band

One of the things about keeping a daily journal that is maybe a little less “agreeable,” let’s say, is the awareness, with each new dateline, that time is passing. One can become morose about it quite easily, especially in middle age, where I find myself now. Actually, when I stop to think about it, as I’m doing presently, my realization is that “middle-aged” has become a euphemism for me, or optimistic, at best. I’ve really reached the unenviable moment – and you’re lucky enough to share the occasion of my realization with me – of understanding that I’ve got less time ahead of me than I’ve put behind me.

“Over the hill.” I get that expression now.

I noticed recently that my dear old friend and high school sweetheart, Maria Voles Ferguson, had my yearbook quote among her “Favorite Quotations” on her Facebook page:

“The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.”

-- James Taylor

I took a lot of crap for that when the yearbook, Reminiscence, came out in the spring of 1981. My English teacher and early mentor, Mary O’Donnell, was disappointed, because she’d wanted me to come up with my own turn of phrase. Pink Floyd's 1978 album, The Wall was still hugely popular then, so a lot of my friends considered my quote too wimpy and not rebellious enough, in that “We Don’t Need No Education” kind of way. And, hey, come to think of it, I think Maria even teased me about it. Hmmm.

Now, however, as I look at James’s words, I think yes, why not? Our time is so precious, so fleeting and finite. Why not “enjoy” it in whichever fashion represents enjoyment in your mind? Maybe rebellion is your enjoyment. Or maybe it’s rooting out injustice. Enjoy it.

Enjoy life.