It's springtime. Every year, my favorite time of year. It can be dull and dreary and full of mud, but it is warm, and I love that. I've often wondered if my favorite time of year has anything to do with the fact that I was born in the spring. Perhaps I have so much residual happiness left over from the light and discovery and birthday parties that I can't help but celebrate this season. It seems most people like the season they were born into, but not all of them.
There's always this awkward phase though. I see it now as I glance out my window. The blanket of whitewashing snow is gone, but it has left behind heaps of rocks, dust, sand, and litter everywhere it had been heaped up. The grass is dead and brown. No flowers bloom. The trees are a dusky meld of dead brown. Anywhere there isn't pavement, there is likely to be sticky mud that gets on your shoes and pants and follows you everywhere but the innermost portions of clean tidy buildings. Today the sky is a mass of hazy bluish-grey, occasionally drooping into scattered showers, but mostly just lazing about in the lower atmosphere.
I've heard it said that spring is waiting for summer. But that's silly, you know. Trees and mud and skies don't wait for anything. They simply change as the weather changes. How would a cloud or a rock or a seed care what color it is or how long it'll be until people can be out enjoying popsicles on the boardwalk or celebrating birthday parties around a picnic table? The world is in the present moment, neither regretting nor waiting, but simply being.
People aren't like that. People long for spring after a harsh winter. People dream of summer during a muddy spring. People hope for a crisp fall after a humid summer. Perhaps there are people who wait in anticipation for winter too, but I do not understand why they would do this. People have hopes and longings and complaints and regrets. People are not satisfied. People cannot always live in the present moment.
Upon the advice of a prestigious psychologist, I have taken to occasionally listening to the recorded message of humans who claim to be able to aid me in achieving mindfulness. That is, they whisper into microphones about paying attention to my breathing, considering what I'm thinking about and feeling, and experiencing my senses one at a time. Usually they stick with five senses, but apparently there are more. I can focus on my sense of balance, for example, which makes my sense of hot/cold and my sense of where each part of my body is located and my sense of time passing less notable in my brain. I suppose all of those feelings could be attributed to touch in some way, but they are not the same.
I like to occasionally listen to the whispers of the mindfulness speakers. They remind me that no matter what has happened or what might happen or how many consequences I will have to face, I can only change the present moment. I am only living in this incredibly small instant of time that will disappear instantly after I've experienced it. And what can I do with it then?
Well, what can I do? I've heard that most people don't need help discovering what their dreams are, though some do. Apparently some people cannot have their own dreams, but if someone else has a strong dream, they can share it and it becomes both people's dream. The tricky part for most people is believing that their dreams can happen. I have many dreams that I don't pursue because I believe them to be impossible. I envy children in the way that to them, nothing is quite impossible, but as we gain experiences, we learn that not everything can be possible. No matter how much we want something, we might not be able to get it. Worse, we might have to give up something else to get it. I wonder if it's possible to have it all?
It is impossible for me to live completely in the present moment. It would be silly, in fact. Even animals use their memories of the past to help them achieve advantages and avoid pain. I don't think animals have much sense of the future though. Sure, they plan ahead for winter hibernation and whatnot, and they must have a sense of schedule, or my dog would never be able to predict what time I'll be home from work each day. Yet, I don't think it's likely that they worry about what will happen, who will feel what about them, and whether they'll have food stored up for every day of their lives. Perhaps they do have anxiety about the future, but it seems unlikely to me.
I spend a lot of my time in the future, wondering what will happen and how to best prepare for it. I spend a lot of time in the past, considering what has happened and why and how to prevent or cause such things to happen again. The present moment is a difficult place to live in, even in the springtime when the world smells like fresh new mud and the wind is soft and warm and the colors are beginning to remind me that nothing stays brown and dead forever.
I cannot decide if it is better to be like a tree: living always in the present, unable to dream or regret. A sense of time is a dangerous thing.
