Whew, it has been a week, and it's only Wednesday. Work has been insanity which chews at my soul because I expect insanity from September-June, but wasn't prepared for insanity chomping at the bit for this summertime cameo. I must find a way to get sane again soon because the impending doom looms.
There I go again dreading what's ahead. I should soak up the current moments, whatever they are, instead of cultivating the anxiety I've envisioned for the future. I write about this a lot here (and here and here) and this Wendell Berry poem speaks to that idea of living in the moment. I'm obsessed with this poem and the narrator's perfect use of words...particularly the "moving picture," and "moving river" and "boat moved swiftly." That repetition emphasizes that this entire thing is fluid, happening, speeding, going on and yet the man is not with it. His life is swiftly moving toward the end ("of vacation" here but I really think this is much more) and he's not in it at all.
It's never great to be in those moments that are crappy but if we don't engage with those, we can't expect to know how to be in the moments that aren't crappy. I'm going to try (again) because otherwise years from now, I'm going to be watching a film of life's memories, not really knowing what it was like to live it.
The Vacation
Wendell Berry
Once there was a man who filmed his vacation.
He went flying down the river in his boat
with his video camera to his eye, making
a moving picture of the moving river
upon which his sleek boat moved swiftly
toward the end of his vacation. He showed
his vacation to the camera, which pictured it,
preserving it forever: the river, the trees,
the sky, the light, the bow of his rushing boat
behind which he stood with his camera
preserving his vacation even as he was having it
so that after he had had it he would still
have it. It would be there. With a flick
of a switch, there it would be. But he
would not be in it. He would never be in it.
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