(How I would look with a halo as drawn with my thumb on my phone.)
I've spent some time lately thinking about a certain recent day. A couple of weeks ago, during the packing for the move, I was lamenting the fact that I was working and packing so much that I was not seeing my family. Have you ever started thinking "if only....... then every thing would be perfect..."? I've done that a lot. Not always perfectly consciously but the thought was there that I just need this one thing. As it turned out in this case, I ended up with a perfect Enzo day during a break from packing. I watched him laugh, I watched him explore, I focused fully on him, we played, we snuggled, we went for a walk, we played in the park, we played in the water structure, we spent the day together. Tami had to work and had Ana and so Enzo and I just spent the day together and it was exactly the kind of day I am always wanting more of. A day in which I am wholly present and focused on enjoying my family and the moment. In this case it was specifically with Enzo. There were moments where I lost myself, in a good way, in the moment. I guess I did not loose myself so much as blend into the moment. You know how sometimes you jut feel happy and you are smiling while you are engaged in the world around you? Those moments.
And I got to thinking at the end of a perfect me and Enzo day.
The pleasure, the in-ness of those moments, are fleeting. I got exactly what I wanted, exactly the kind of quality time, "if only....time," and yet the moment passes, new feelings come and go. I receive no plaque, no award or reward, no lasting feeling or medallion for having spent a perfect day with my child where I fully paid attention to him and found perfect harmony and pleasure from being there. I have no saint's halo, no Buddha glow. Pictures of me will continue to look like very ordinary pictures of me.
This thought did not come with the feeling of complaint. Jut a clear absolute realization and acceptance. I got what I wanted. If I want the feeling again, I will have to do it again. I don't get to own the moment and place it on a shelf for future reliving, I have not advanced to a new superior state of being, I will receive no extrinsic reward. My reward was the moment itself. These may seem like plain words, but nearly-religious experiences often do when reduced to language. I suspect this would explain the desire to exaggerate such experiences but I am avoiding that here. The simple thought that: the full reward for any moment is the moment itself, came with that emotional feeling of Ah-ha! that we sometimes get when we feel clear about the ways of the Universe.
I got exactly what I wanted and lived a day as clear and in the moment as I could imagine. And what I got was the moment itself.