In the Moment
Sunday, July 30th, 2000. A journal entry:
I was looking out a window this morning. It’s been off-and-on raining for the past two days, a welcomed break from the heat we’ve been having. Everything was still green and alive but things would have begun to die and dry up if the rain hadn’t come when it did. So it was a pleasant rain, a rain that had it’s place. Grey skies but not cold and depressing grey skies. And as Tom Waits would say, with so many other things that can kill us in this life, a little rain never hurt no one.
The window I’m looking out happens to be under a high porch — the back deck of our house. There wasn’t any rain falling, but there was moisture in the air; everything was wet, and water was dripping off the deck, being blown by the wind. As I’m looking out the window — at first being fooled that it was raining outside until I noticed that it was the wind blowing the rain off the deck — I see a weed growing out of the wet grass near one of the deck posts. It’s blowing back and forth like a small tree. It has just one or two big leaves growing near the top of it. The leaves are constantly collecting dew. Every time the wind blows I can see large droplets of water pouring off the pointed ends of the leaves.
And in that moment, looking at the green wet leaf of that weed, a living thing, I realized an appreciation for it. I thought of how most people hate mosquitos, but if you look at the mosquito for what it is, I hate to say it, there’s something beautiful about it. As I’m looking at this green wet leaf, I appreciate it for what it is, not for what I want it to be. And in that moment I was happy.
There’s a lot to be said about trusting these feelings. It wasn’t the thoughts that brought me to the moment; the thoughts were propelled by feelings. I didn’t know what it was, I didn’t know what I would find, but I could feel that it was good. And in that moment, being there, it brought me to a good place.
Walt Whitman wrote a book called Leaves of Grass all about this kind of thing. Trusting our feelings. Embracing what is good, what is real. And knowing that what is alive, anything living, is beautiful in itself.
I hope this is just the beginning.