The Moment

June 24, 2019

Greetings from the fleeting glimpse,

I sat fidgeting in the seat, my suit clinging to my skin, overdressed for the temperature, maybe for anything, even a funeral.  I waited for people to settle in around me, waited to see if there was anyone I knew.  Exchanged polite nods with strangers, those looks you give people in elevators when nothing else comes to mind.

The woman leading the service stepped to the front and adjusted the small light on the podium, settled a few pages of notes.  When she looked up, we all thought she was looking directly at us, and fought our collective fidgeting. There was a pause, and then she spoke in a clear, measured voice.

“We are gathered here today, to acknowledge the passing of an important part of our lives.  It is not a time of simple mourning, any of us here know that in the sadness there is also a feeling of celebration and hope.  In all of that, we are here to fully sense what has left us.  To give it the gravity and depth of us it deserves.”

I leaned back to listen, felt my spine against the hard, wooden bench.  I watched her settle her posture, now speaking with power, now telling us from her soul.  And even while watching her, out of the corner of my eye I was aware the window was open.  I did not turn to look. 

She said: “And so it is that we assemble here, all of us in our beauty, all of us with the same burden and glory, and mourn the passing of The Moment.  It is hard to accept the loss.  It was with us, and then, without warning, without any chance for patience or prayer or a thought of when there would be another, it was gone.”

Some of the people around me looked down at their hands, and I felt the grief in the room.  We all knew. 

“The Moment was with us, it was a rich and vibrant part of us.  It brought us great pleasure, laughter, took us to the breathless heights of our greatest experience.  And too, The Moment marked pain.  The Moment was different for each of us.  It lasted a second, or a few minutes, or for lucky few, something longer that is harder to measure.”

I listened to her words, felt them really, and still my eyes were drawn to the wall lined with stained glass depictions of holy people held in place by the marble and brick.  My eyes followed the colors until I could see through the open window.  Blue sky.  I breathed in and out.

  

“The Moment when we felt lighter than air, when we felt we could sing flawlessly, we could run without ever tiring, when the words we searched for flowed from us, when we laughed so hard we could not breathe and did not care.”  She smiled at us and leaned forward over the podium, looking right at us. “The Moment we loved someone, when we held our baby for the first time, The Moment we had an answered prayer.  The first hot day of summer when we tasted the water from the hose and gave it the attention that such pleasures deserve, and we knew we were in The Moment.  We lived ourselves into it.  We felt our existence and were grateful, even when it was difficult.”

The rows of people around me smiled and fidgeted, and we all felt The Moment ripple through us as we each remembered our own.  I looked down at my hands, interlaced the fingers, and looked up into the eyes of a small boy in the pew in front of me.  He was whispering something to his mother, she was shushing him.  He looked back over the worn wooded frame and mouthed the words “I have to go potty!”  Somehow, I didn’t burst out laughing.  I looked up at the speaker, again stifling the mirth.

“But we can be honest, after all this is a place of truth.  Too often The Moment came, and we could not bring ourselves to go with it.  We were afraid, or we thought we knew better, that we should put aside the things of a child, or we felt our attention was better focused elsewhere, and The Moment is not forgiving.  The Moment is generous but impatient and is gone before we even consider asking for a second chance.”

“The Moment would sometimes bring sadness, or fear, or something darker.  Letting go of the hand of a loved one, the last time, feeling the flame flicker and gutter and then dim.  We watched our daughter walk into school without us, that first time, and knew she was now on her own path.

There was The Moment when you were eleven and you stood in front of the boy you loved and opened your mouth to say it and then did not.  And so we grieve the wasted Moment, the resentful Moment, the Moment not taken.”

I was sitting close enough that I knew she could see me looking out the window, the experience rife with irony, but there was something that caught my eye, a whirl of birds surging from a tree out there.  They disappeared from the frame of the stained glass.  I waited as the speaker poured her message onto us. 

 “For many of us, knowing The Moment was far too brief.  Yes, there were times when The Moment seemed infinite, an experience we thought would never end.  We gather here, my friends, in this morning of tragedy and celebration and joy, and raise our eyes to The Moment, now lost to our lives, which has brought us closer to living than almost anything we can name.  We take this time to commemorate the loss, to feel the Moments of pain and ache and beauty and passion.  We are together to feel the hope of being rejoined with The Moment again someday.”

People dabbed at their eyes, someone sniffled behind me.  I watched through the window, the blue sky there, a smudge of moon, the tips of the tree.  I knew the service was nearly over, even without hearing each word I could tell by the pace of the speaker’s language that she said what was in her to share.

I almost turned back to the front of the church when I saw three birds come back to the branches of the tree, first fluttering around each other, flitting among the limbs to find their place.  And then one by one settling into where they wanted to belong.  I could see their shape against the blue, knew each feather, saw the tiniest shade of color in each shadow on them, and felt myself go with them.  And still heard the words;

“The Moments will come to us, and each time we are ready we will glimpse our purpose in being here.  We will embrace The Moments and be embraced by them.  The day will come when all our days are our present, and each Moment will be filled with an eternity of Moments.”

I heard her say this and it seemed as though the birds were telling me the words.  I felt the people around me, their warmth and grief and hope and love, the essence of them.  The summer reached into the room and lifted me with it, on the wings of three birds, and I was weightless and timeless. I felt The Moment as if it was experiencing me.  Somewhere in that endless breath, God smiled.

Hope this finds you present,

David

Copyright © 2019 David Smith

The Garden

June 17, 2019

Greetings from where we grow,

He walked into the hardware store, the wooden screen door banging lightly behind him, and followed the creaking pine boards, shiny and yellow with age, back between the dusty shelves.  He had been in this store years before and had a sense for where he would ask for help, at a big counter wedged in the rear of the store.

His short sleeved plaid shirt was buttoned to the collar, in the pocket a matching pen and mechanical pencil standing ready for duty.  His small round glasses sat exactly where he put them and looked as though they were pinching his eyes together in a permanent scowl. 

He stepped to the counter and cleared his throat, his way of announcing himself, a feature of irritation to his wife when she was alive, God rest her anyway. 

The woman behind the counter looked up over half rimmed readers and looked down again.  She was sprinkling eight penny nails into a metal tray, weighing out five pounds.  She wore a stained apron over her denim shirt. The apron was pinned with a name tag that said ‘Roger’.

He cleared his throat again and then in his precise speech made an attempt at a salutation in order to introduce what he really wanted to say.  “I have a problem in my garden.  I am told you are a good person to advise me in this situation.”

The woman paused and rested her hands flat on the counter, strong hands; blunt fingers, a rim of dirt under the nails, a horseshoe scar on the thumb, pale against her tan skin.  “How can I help you?” she said, a faint smile, but not putting a lot into it.

The man adjusted his feet and stood a little taller.  “I have planted the garden and whatever good that grows is taken by other creatures.  I am left to fight weeds that threaten to take over the rest of the patch.”  He punctuated this statement by thrusting his chin slightly forward, which his wife, God rest her anyway, told him made him look irritated.  This time it did, and he was.  “I spend all my time pulling weeds, and it makes me angry.  It is not why I planted the garden.”

The woman reached up and removed her glasses.  She asked what he planted and when, and what he did to keep the poachers out, and what weeds were growing, what he did about that.  It was an interview more than a conversation, neither offering anything much beyond what was required.  The man felt himself growing uncomfortable, but he needed her help.

Finally she put her glasses back on and turned to the shelves behind her, and after pushing a few things aside, found a paper bag, spotted with grease stains.  She took it down and looked the man again.

“You were here before, and I gave you what to plant.  You may have not understood, or you ignored what you were given.  You planted what you thought was sensible or what you saw other people growing.  What came up was small and dull with little flavor, but it was what you planted.  You were given seeds that would bring you a rich full harvest and you practically ignored the gift.”

The man drew himself up slightly, acted as if he had a response, and then thought better of it.

“It’s not too late for the garden, I know how to help you, but before I do you have to agree to trust me, and  do exactly as I instruct you.”  She cocked her head slightly and looked him directly in the eye, and in that moment, where he might have looked away, he was frozen in her gaze.  He nodded silently.

She reached into the paper bag with a large scoop and brought out a share of the seeds inside and poured them into a smaller bag that magically appeared in her other hand.  She rolled down the top.  Then, pulling a pencil from somewhere in the large grey bun of hair on top of her head, she scribbled a note on a yellowed pad and tore off the sheet and stapled it to the bag.

She looked at him a last time, now a hint of kindness in her eyes. “When you plant, don’t wear gloves.  You should have your hands in the soil.  You should feel the earth and it should feel you.”

The season ebbed and pulsed, and the days warmed and the rain fell, and a morning broke.  The man stood at the edge of the garden in his dungarees and t-shirt he wore to do chores.  His lips were set in a straight line.  In his hand was the folded note from the hardware store.  He had planted as she instructed and watered and stood watch.  Last night when he went to bed, there were a few buds in the dark earth.  Now what he saw made his legs tremble.

The plants were gargantuan.  They were so large they had consumed the entire garden and were pushing up the grass near the tilled soil.  Enormous stalks festooned with broad leaves, each tipped with a glorious flower.  And under the leaves, incredibly, were pears.  And apples.  And cucumbers and tomatoes and broccoli. Vines shot out into the grass, heavy with grapes. 

He sat on the grass, his knees sparking mild protest, and put his hand on the leaves, as if to prove the plants existed.  He realized his mouth was agape, and he tried to set his lips again, but found that he was smiling, and it was awkward.  And then it wasn’t.  His wife, God rest her anyway, said he had a wonderful smile, and it wasn’t until this morning that he realized he’d been wasting it by hiding it.

He unfolded the note in hand and spread it flat on his knee.  The printing was neat, slightly smudged now from being refolded so many times.  He read it again, a short paragraph on how to prepare the soil and plant the seeds, and when to water.  And then this:

“First:  Understand this; creatures are going to come into your garden and take what you grew, often the best of what you grew.  You can let it distract you from the beauty, or you can choose to accept it, and, if you’re wise, to make it part of your intention. You should know that is some of your purpose, to share what you have in your garden.

Second: There will always be weeds.  It is your choice to resent their presence, and how much time you spend dealing with them.  If you find you are always pulling weeds, you are working on the wrong thing.  I will also tell you, some things you think are weeds bring the most amazing flowers.

Third: Most importantly, you are in charge of what grows in your garden; put there what makes you smile.  Plant and grow the things that will be so large, so wonderful, that there will be little room for the weeds, and you will always have enough of the best to share with others.  Plant what will fill the garden with what you love and anyone who sees it will know you.”

The man folded the note again and slipped it into his pocket.  Then he raised onto his hands and knees and eased into the garden, pressing the leaves aside, careful not to crush the blueberries he hadn’t noticed before.  When he was surrounded by the plants he turned on the damp soil and lay down on his back, arms outstretched into the lush growth. 

He felt the earth reach up into him, connecting him to the living things he had planted, the best of him. He felt the light soak into him. He felt his body relax into the soil, the pains fade, and the years dissolve.  He laughed for a moment and breathed in the smell of the life around him.  And felt himself blooming inside.

Hope this finds you planting,

David

Copyright © 2019 David Smith

Space Station for Father's Day

June 10, 2019

Greetings from the final frontier,

I’m so excited you can probably feel it from there.  (If you are touching your screen trying to feel it from there, don’t blame me for smudges.  Also, look up the term ‘hyperbole’.)  I just found out that NASA is opening the International Space Station to commercial customers.

I have already started practicing being weightless by hopping around the kitchen, and while my vertical leap is not very impressive, I did achieve a moment of extreme dizziness which is probably like being in zero gravity.  

Of course, I am going.  I have given this very serious consideration during the time it took me to start this sentence, and I am convinced I am a perfect candidate to be an astronaut.  Other than mild claustrophobia and vertigo, I have the Right Stuff.  And, a unique opportunity on my horizon.

This morning I watched a video of Christina Koch, speaking from the International Space Station, and she said this: “Enabling a vibrant economy in low earth orbit has always been a driving element of the space station program and will make space accessible to all Americans.” 

Well, maybe not all Americans.  NASA estimates the cost to stay on the International Space Station will be about $35,000 per night.  So, unless there is some kind of Groupon I suspect a few Americans will not make the trip. 

One minor add-on to the adventure that was not mentioned in NASA’s teaser was the transportation cost.  The flight to the ISS is estimated at $60 million.  (I assume that is round trip but couldn’t find details on Expedia.)  Also, so far, no Uber alternative.

Nevertheless, (a word made up of three other words you never use together, separately) I have a strong suspicion that I am going into space.  Father’s Day is coming, and I am one of those hard-to-buy-for people. (So far ‘hardtobuyfor, does not exist in the dictionary, but ‘heretofore’ does; go figure.)

I was asked to supply a list of gift ideas for Father’s Day, and I plumbed the depths of my creativity and included ‘Dark Navy Socks’.  This list was met with an unfiltered display of disdain.  Which is absolute proof that my family is going to send me to outer space.

I imagine they discussed the usual list of ideas; ties, tools, breath mints.  And they already gave me the t-shirt with ‘World’s Greatest Dad’ on it.  So what’s left?  You read my mind: space.  (Not to say that my mind is just ‘space’.  Also, if you were surprised to learn you could read minds, please see ‘hyperbole’ reference earlier.) 

I can imagine my family saying these words: “I wish there was some way we could put him in a metal tube and launch him into a hostile, airless place, so he could tell his endless stories to complete strangers who only speak Russian.”  They do love me.

The training for qualified astronauts is about two years, maybe another two years to get ready for time on the space station.  But regular people are not going to put up with that.  We freak out if there is a three-minute delay in the TSA line because some idiot packed a 4.5 oz tube of embarrassing ointment that now we ALL know about.  So I expect that there will be some kind of express training where I will be given a tight fitting unitard and some Raybans to wear on the walk to the rocket.  Maybe some instructions on how to use the toilet in zero-G.  Good to go.

I imagine that NASA will want to spice up the routine on the ISS; less of that research and experimenting and floating and the like. Sure, you can look at the view, but there are sixteen sunrises a day up there so that will get old after a while.  I’m hoping there will be excursions, like maybe do a little space surfing, dangling off the end of the ISS by one of those long cables, get a selfie or two as we float past Earth.  If there’s a gift shop I’m definitely getting that t-shirt that says ‘In space no one can hear you fart’ to give to my friends who like Ridley Scott movies.

Really it’s the perfect Father’s Day gift.  It’s an experience any Dad would enjoy, and for sure you didn’t get it for him last year and forgot, like that time you gave him that ‘World’s Greatest Dad’ t-shirt two years in a row, which kind of takes the sincerity out of it.  I mean it’s not like there’s research or a contest, it’s not meant to be taken literally, it’s kind of like hyperbole. 

One last note, I just discovered I’ve been mispronouncing ‘hyperbole’ for the last five decades.  Could we just not mention it, please?  I mean, why is it spelled like that anyway? 

Hope this finds you looking down on everyone,

David

Copyright © 2019 David Smith

Birthday Run

June 3, 2019

Greetings from the gift,

These miles we shared.  I took you along because it was a day to celebrate, and that is best done with friends and loved ones.

The first mile we pour out on the ground, an offering to the day, a bit of gratitude just to be able to move and feel the world around us.  The second we ask what's possible today and see what our bodies say.  This morning, just a little after sunrise, it feels like our bodies say, ‘Let’s run forever.’

If this was your first time out, you probably thought this is some magic, and maybe it is.  The confluence of body and spirit and weather and rest and food, and threaded throughout all of it, this humming vibration.  I am a needle in the groove, the record spinning under me, playing the sound through me.

The next miles whirl by without comment, I am a little afraid to acknowledge how fast we are going.  A few rabbits come to the edge of the road and blink their admiration and then run along for a moment before zagging into the brush.

The sixth mile tips over, the world is more open here, shaped by what is grown instead of where people live.  I see a couple wading through a garden, picking asparagus.  We yell “Morning!” at each other, then I add: “Today is my birthday!”  The woman calls back: “Happy birthday!”  Also could have been: “Buy some asparagus!”

Two redwing blackbirds skate and swoop in the field next to me, daring me to chase them. 

I look up across the empty field, bordered in tall grass in the ditches and see a big speedboat racing across the field, which should have startled me but does not.  A moment later the car pulling it emerges from behind the grass and then disappears again and the boat flies over the waves of green.

My shorts are dark with sweat.  The sun has moved up to watch what we are doing and with it comes a hint of summer.  I have settled into a natural pace, no longer resisting, determined to trust my legs.  I am some other version of me, decades ago.  It makes me smile as I run.

We glide past a corn cemetery, jagged vestiges of another season.  I look to the north and point out a girl in a red shirt, running toward us, maybe half a mile away.  It is remarkable because somehow, wherever she started, oblivious of us, she has timed her run so we cross the same intersection at the same moment.  I nod and say good morning as she goes by.  She is redfaced and sweating, and gasps something back as we cross, inches from each other.

Effortless.  That’s the word that floats up at the ninth mile, so we name it that.  Out to our right are rows of green buds like bright guitar strings across the earth.  The hum is stronger.  I am tempted to open it up, see what will happen, but there is a long way to go.  I drift off for a mile, thinking, listening to the next song, and then we talk about this life.

We turn back east, and the twelfth mile introduces itself with a rumble.  Somewhere to the northwest there is a storm.  The meteorologist called for ‘scattered thunderstorms’ and I pictured God casting a handful of these over The Mitten, sewing wide swaths of angry purple among the peaceful blue.  Scattered.

We count steps crunching in the gravel, thack thack thack thack, a metronome setting a pace I tell all of you I am still a little surprised by.  I am deep in thought for a while, remembering other runs, other celebrations, then brought back by the dull deep thud of the storm beyond the trees.  It sounds like someone is dragging huge furniture over the wood floor above the clouds.

I have not broken stride in sixteen miles, barely slowing to grab the bottles of water I cached the night before.  I have not felt my breathing change since the second mile when I was told how the day would be.  I know what this is.

A dog confronts us, and we lurch to the edge of the road, feel the miles that have been chasing us pile up into us at the sudden deceleration.  Seconds tick by that seem like hours, and then the dog relents, and I feel the enormous weight of gravity as I reassert momentum against the pavement.  And then the hum is back, my arms swinging easy, legs devouring the blacktop, muscles working, breathing easily again.

The air cooled when the clouds slipped over the sun, dimming the morning.  I am back in my groove, legs are turning under me on their own volition, faster now than the first miles.  I sense a flash of light, then the angry grumble, feel it more than hear it.  I feel a mist come at me from my left, see the pavement go shiny with the wetness.  The first drops come, so large I can see the individual shapes as they go by the brim of my hat and crash into the road.  And then they are splashing onto my shoulder, sluicing my back, and we are immersed in the storm.

This is the eighteenth mile; it’s as if we waded into a concert in full swing, the timpani leading the orchestra, thumping so loud that it nearly covers the hiss of the rain.  It feels like someone is throwing enormous balls of water at us, each exploding on my bare skin and forming with its kin and running to my shoes.  It is not raining on me; I am in the rain.

The thunder and lightning are not some far off news report, it is crashing all around us.  This mile splashes by, I am running faster, maybe from fear, but it doesn’t feel like that, it feels like the most natural thing to do.  And then this happens:

White peas begin bouncing off the black pavement. Hail joins the rain, pelting the earth, plinking against me on its way down.  I start laughing, at first because it is such a surprise, and then just because it is so beautiful.  The beads of white are dancing on the world around me, celebrating with us.

For a mile the world becomes this mixture of oversized teardrops and these kernels of ice, a sheet of texture and movement, the hail ricocheting off the earth and then settling like cake sprinkles swept off some pastry chef’s table. 

And then it’s the twentieth mile. The rain has faded, the hail is done.  I turn onto my street, almost surprised that we are here already.  I am not far from a shower and breakfast, and a cornucopia of good wishes from around the world.  But in that last stretch I slow a bit, not wanting it to be over.

I know I was given a gift, this magic morning where I could run and not be weary.  I had to keep myself from questioning it, and finally to simply accept it as part of this wonderful day.  Nature came and put on a show, made me part of it, gave me experiences that changed me.  I celebrated my birthday with you.  I felt your presence in every step, felt you reaching from this place and that to say you were with me, happy that it was my birthday.

I know this possibility exists in every morning, waiting for us to notice.  It is a gift we are given each time we open our eyes and begin again.  I am so grateful I was awake to see it, and that you were with me.  Thanks to all of you who came along.

Hope this finds you soaking it in,

David

Copyright © 2019 David Smith