A few years ago, I sat on my son's bedroom floor folding some baby clothes that he'd outgrown. I could feel the sadness and regret creeping in, but I wanted so badly to feel OK about the passage of time. I quickened my pace to push the pain away. I wanted the moment to be over. Suddenly, though, I looked up and notices a very blue sky staring down through the window. Just feel it, I said to myself, as I slowed down, trying to focus on the task in front of me. I held a shirt close to my face and inhaled as deeply as I could. My heart seemed to crack and fill up at the same time as feelings of hope and loss collided right there in a pile of little boy's old clothes. When I finally got up to leave the room, I wasn't sad anymore. Instead, I thought about the miraculous growth of a child, whose shirt size is less about loss and more about the gift of life itself.
I don't know if you can live inside each and every moment. But when you can, try to stop, look, and listen long enough to be right where you are, not in your past, not in your future. Just right in the middle of a split second in time. -Leslie Levine
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