Member-only story
Standing at the Precipice
Reflections from a Contemplative Life
We wait for things to slow down, but they do not slow.
Could we return to some space, to stretch it out, to make a moment last?
No, the heart and mind are swept into the stream and fragments shed among a thousand spaces, over a thousand miles or more. Conversations. Moments.
We each find our way to capture or savor or remember them. These moments, these interactions. The laughter. Standing on the edge of a street curb or rock jutting waterward, watching fireworks or ocean waves surging and ebbing again and again.
We take photos of the moments or selfies of ourselves within them. We write a diary entry or a poem or reflection of some sort. We paint the moment and it might capture only the essence, impressionistic, of some memory, some interaction, some relationship we had, some person we once were. We collect ticket stubs or postcards or some memento to remind us.
Casting the mind back, we all remember differently. The moment is cast in rose for one, in dark monochrome for another. No single view objective, not through these eyes.
So, we try again.
We celebrate. We come together. We tell stories and these stories we tell change a little with every telling. We laugh. And although it might sound sentimental, we do also cry. We love.
And in loving imperfectly — as we do all things imperfectly here in the already and the not yet — sometimes we break bridges and sometimes we build them.
We live …
Standing at the precipice every moment. A step away from a surging ocean, the night bright beneath a rounding moon.
