Moments (5 July 2009)

(to C)
"...we can dilate ourselves indefinitely by a more and more vigorous effort ... [and] transcend ourselves. ... We go toward a duration which stretches, tightens, and becomes more and more intensified: at the limit would be eternity. ... An eternity of life." (Bergson) Eternities that explode in certain moments: you sing a note and hear it reverberate in a perfect acoustical space; the feel of the rain on your face turned upward to the sky; the caress of a warm breath on your neck; the tremor in the instant his fingertips leave your skin -- moments where we let ourselves go and are taken out of ourselves (ec-stasy, ek-stasis) -- moments without purpose or ulterior motive. We cannot live "for" such moments, hoarding them jealously in the cavern of memory waiting to be re-lived, compulsively, again and again as if they could ever happen again, just as we remember them (like still thinking we are still varsity athletes when we're thirty). For to live like this would be to try to define ourselves by these moments, as if our lives have a meaning in these little eternities. But if, to experience eternity, we have to become infinite and be taken beyond ourselves, then what matters is simply to allow these experiences to happen -- to learn how to be open; to learn how to wait; and to master not knowing. Then we can be grateful not for what we have or what we pursue but for what we are given and for those whose paths we are lucky enough to share--even if only for a few steps.