Be where you are, it’s okay!

Where we find ourselves on any day is often not comfortable and often its not ideal and often we struggle with it and all of that is okay. I was reading something today in my book The Poetry Pharmacy about not living in the moment. The point that the author William Sieghardt was making is that there is so much self help advice out there at the moment about living in and embracing the present moment, that at times we can start to feel guilty or as if there is something wrong with us if we cannot. William includes a poem on the subject with each of his commentaries on life issues such as the pain of not being able to live in the present moment. The fact is that we are human. We have minds that stray into all kind of different places, we can become lost or drowned or submerged in thoughts and pain about the past, weighted down by regret, caught up in fears about the future, stuck in painful rumination or just captured by powerful images of the slowly fading bliss of happier times, all of this is just a part of the human experience, not something that must be ‘gotten over’ or necessarily left behind.

I am noticing a lot more lately that when my own mind starts to judge me in just such a way (and I think this is one sad consequence of the technological/information age) there is just so much out there telling us how we would be best to live that we forget what it is to actually just be where we are, accept ourselves as we are and live true to our own experience, even if it doesn’t seem to fit up to modern projected ideals. The truth is that it can be wonderful to be lost in the past, it can be engaging to dive into our memories or past feelings and perhaps write poems about them.

I was also listening to a programme on the subject of clutter yesterday and the presenter was saying that in this day and age there is also a preoccupation with clearing clutter, only holding onto items that spark joy but what about the sheer beauty of things that are odd or offbeat or old or associated with less lighthearted memories? Do we just have to discard them if they make us feel uncomfortable? The presenter was saying how much he enjoys his own clutter. It can be interesting to gaze upon a tangled up jumble or collection of odd beat items, do these not also contain their own kind of meaning and artistry? Do we really always have to live minimally or with all the ‘mess’ or jumble tidied away? Doesn’t all of this preoccupation point to a kind of perfectionism, a prescription of living that will in some way ensure an ongoing ease or pleasure that may not always be realistic?

My truth is that is can be wonderful to live freely in the present moment, one of my favourite joys is just being out in nature with Jasper and watching him run long ears flying through the grass, gleefully caught up in an ongoing futile chase to catch birds. He never actually succeeds in catching them but it doesn’t make him stop trying, nor dull his heartfelt enthusiasm for the task. At the moment as I am typing this he is lying curled up by my side because its a dull wintry morning and together we are feeling the warm cosiness of a present moment cuddle on the sofa, but I am sure in time my thoughts will begin to stray forwards and backwards to the past and the future as I gaze at a jumble of mix matched books on my living room floor.

At the moment I am just learning to take as much pleasure as I can in where I am at, I not trying to make my feelings different even though my ongoing monologue with the inner critic/observer is always challenging me to look at things differently or change my point of view on something so as to perhaps bring more ease. I can just watch the process of my thinking as it plays itself out. I can see where I get captured in painful lonely feelings at times in response to that 20th unreturned call from my sister, I can watch when I start to beat myself up about all my clutter, I can see where I start to get restive with Scott when things with him coming home aren’t moving quite as fast as I would like, and in some strange way I can kind of be grateful for it all and know its all okay even as it fails to live up to my projected ideals.

I am grateful to William Sieghardt too. I love his book The Poetry Pharmacy, its a great go to book to dip into if you are struggling with a life issue. I am going to share the poem he refers to in his book on this issue of not living in the present below. I hope you get a kick out of it as I did when I opened it up this morning.

The Present

by Billy Collins

Much has been said about being in the present.

It’s the place to be according to the gurus,

like the latest club on the downtown scene,

but no one, it seems, is able to give you directions.

It doesn’t seem desirable or even possible

to wake up every morning and begin

leaping from one second to the next

until you fall exhausted into bed.

Plus, there’d be no past

with so many scenes to savour and regret,

and no future, the place you will die

but not before flying around with a jet pack.

The trouble with the present is

that it’s always in a state of vanishing.

Take the second it takes to end

this sentence with a period – already gone.

What about the moment that exists

between banging your thumb

with a hammer and realising

you are in a whole lot of pain?

What about the one that occurs

after you hear the punch line

but before you get the joke?

Is that where the wise men want us to live

in that intervening tick, the tiny slot

that occurs after you have spent hours

searching downtown for that new club

and just before you give up and head back home?