Don't blink ... or you'll miss it...

Anica.. Impermanence

When I was a child,  used to have a T-shirt with the name of my favorite Maine town, Oquossoc printed on the front, and the saying "Don't blink, or you'll miss it" written on the back.  I loved the idea of that saying... I loved the notion that if I even closed my eyes long enough to blink, I would miss passing through heaven on earth..... so while in the back of my Dad's Ford F150, I would keep my eyes peeled - astutely paying attention to every turn, hill and valley... in a heightened state of alertness, so that I would see on approach the fire station, The Oquossoc Hotel,  the Gingerbread House (where they served the yummiest home-churned ice cream), the A&G Variety store (where the old natives would sit on the porch, smoking their pipes, playing checkers and telling stories about "the one that got away"... whether that was fish, deer, or women, it was all the same....), and of course, my favorite, Polly's Fly Shop where the smell of moth balls would sting my nose,  and I would stare for hours at the beautiful array of hand tied flies, adorned with exotic feathers, and dream about being Carrie Stevens herself.  What it must have been like to live in God's Country and tie flies all day! 

 I didn't want to miss a thing....

Year after year, we would make our annual fishing trip, and no matter how keenly I watched the road, the little town changed before my eyes.  The Gingerbread house, that used to be a one-room ice cream parlor with a gift shop got renovated and turned into a full service restaurant.  The old dirt road that we used to get jounced and jousted on became smooth and paved.  The A&G started serving things like "smoked salmon and brie"... and became a whole foods market.  Polly's Fly Shop had a closed sign on the door. 

The next year, Polly's Fly Shop had boards on the windows and weeds growing up through the wooden porch.  A few years later, it was an old, tired, dilapidated building.   And then, one year, as if I had blinked my eyes... it was gone.

Don't blink... or you'll miss it....

When I think of impermanence.. I think of all the wonders of my childhood that have seemingly faded away.  Even this week, we lost a legend - Whitney Houston.  She sang me through my adolescence and all my school girl crushes by asking "How will I know, if he really loves me?"... She boosted my self confidence by reminding me that indeed, "learning to love myself... was the greatest love of all," and I would dance around my room wildly belting out "OH! I wanna Dance with somebody!" and wonder who that "somebody who loves me" would turn out to be... and as if I blinked my eyes... those years are gone ... along with the legend who sang the songs.

There is two ways of looking at time... you can think of it as something fleeting - something that escapes us ... something that is lost forever, that we can never get back...  or you can think of it as snapshots, Kodachrome moments to hold dearly... but most importantly, remember that the moment that is most important, the only one you can hold onto - just for a moment - is the one you have right now.   

Paradise is here, Paradise is now .... Paradise is this moment.