Monday, November 10, 2008
This Moment
"The living moment is everything."
-D.H. Lawrence
Cobalt blue, and here-and there dabs of cotton clouds: that was the sky over a park in Ireland where I sat a couple of years ago, observing the picnics and the children, the birds that darted down for the shadows of leftover bread crusts, the students stretching out long on the grass with enormous textbooks cushioning their sleeping heads.
The local authorities had just installed a ring of high quality, polished, wooden seats that encircled the inner segment of the park. I sat, glad for the comfort, pleased that somebody was taking care to ensure the park was maintained and that the tourists and joggers and colleagues who frequented the area would feel privileged to do so.
I was about to rise and continue my walk about the city of Galway when I was struck back into place by a conversation happening at a tremendous volume next to my ear, for which I admit no fault in overhearing.
"What's the point of these fancy seats?" the woman announced boldly to her friend. "They're just all going to rot someday anyway."
In spite of my astonishment, I silently agreed with my neighbour: the marvellous wooden structures might succumb to the rain, and rot and crumble someday.
They might.
Someday.
But at the very least, we might bring ourselves to enjoy the moment; and while sitting under the most perfect blue sky, with the luxury of having time to spare, that ought not to be very difficult to accomplish.
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5 comments:
Like you, I too would have enjoyed the moment rather than focusing on the negative aspects of what "might" eventually happen the the lovely benches placed in the park.
Oh well, not everyone is a glass - half full type of person. Barb
Yeesh. I'm glad it never occurred to you (or me, by proxy) to have come up with the rotting scenario before the appreciation scenario.
Lovely parks beget happy people!
Is it all right that I held both scenarios simultaneously? Although the "rotting" was simply a fervent hope that they were properly coated and preserved, and a simple thought of how I might accomplish the preservation of similar things as well as similar times out of doors.
Putting cost before comfort - too bad her worry over the future and the money spent overshadowed her ability to see something worthwhile. We humans are an odd lot.
Barb, yes, it was very negative- I think even pessimistic people don't usually think that far ahead. Too gloomy, especially for such a lovely day.
Tangobaby, even if the seats are going to rot someday, the first thing would have been to think about the benefit of having them. As you said, that was the wrong order to think of them in.
Dave, your thought sounds perfectly normal to me- it's logical and practical to think about how best to keep such things, but not so much that it dampens the beauty and the moment.
Pauline, we are odd, most definitely. I found it really sad that she didn't seem able to enjoy the seats. Of course, I know nothing about her, and possibly that was the only negative thing she ever said in her life- but I suspect that the kind of people who say such things out loud do so out of habit.
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