Usually, my mind is all over the place. Either I’m reflecting on the past, or racing ahead to the future to calculate all the alternate timelines that lie ahead (Ironically, I’m doing that now, aren’t I?)
The drawback to this is that I often miss the present moment, until I’m thinking about it later.
The evening of April 12 was different.
Several times during the art show at the Brick Land Gallery, I reminded myself to pause… to look around… and take it all in.
“You made all this happen,” I told myself. The art, the trip, the life I was creating for Oscar and his friend… all this was because I said “yes” and seized the moment.
But then I caught myself thinking about the past again!!
Stop… look around… at all the other artists… at their art… wondering what brought them here to this moment.
Focus!
Now!
I wondered if the guys were enjoying themselves. Admittedly I expected Teen to be bored, since my art has never really been “his thing.”
But there he is! In the present.
OK, he’s not smiling… but he’s here.
The friend is smiling.
“Oh, just stop it!”
“Be here.”
But being here, on October 12, there’s another lesson I learned.
“Just let leave everyone else alone.”
Let others have their own experience, regardless of anything in the past or in the future.
Their experience belongs to them.
Everything else is just expectation and overthinking myself out of the present moment.
It was a sweet moment for me to experience, then and now.
And later that evening, when we were settling into our bedrooms for the night, I caught a glimpse of a post that my son made on Instagram.
“My dad’s gallery in London.”
I paused.
And took that in.
I still do, even now.