These ARe Your Moments

I consider my Life to be a collection of beautiful fragments, each bookmarked unconsciously as they happen. Ever-growing, minute and milli-second in length. These moments cannot be predicted, nor can you always explain why they mean so much to you. I have a hard time recalling them on command, but for this piece I sat and observed what came to me.

1) My niece Siofra asleep next to me, her hands playing with my earrings in her sleep.
2) My Mom’s hands.
3) Drinking my morning cup on the back step of my kitchen, feeling the sun and wind on my face off the mountains.
4) Floating in a natural pool, high up in the hills outside of Panama City.
5) Alone on a train from London to Edinburgh when I was 18, listening to Jeff Buckley’s version of Hallelujah with my backpack next to me, an empty car, and a full moon up above.
6) Sitting at the kitchen table with my Grandma, playing cards and talking.
7) The smell of my parents house on a Saturday morning as a teenager, when my Dad was off work and the coffee pot was on.
8) The sound of skates on ice.
9) Lying in Parque Monceau in Paris on a hot summer’s day when I was 18, reading Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast.
10) Paddling a canoe with my family at our cottage in Quebec, my Uncle’s dog swimming along next to us. The sound of the water lapping at the bottom of a dock or boat always reminds me of my Grandpa.

These things that came to me in this experiment, on reflection, cost me nothing at the time. All of the money I have spent on things and achievements and planned excursions I do not regret, but I have learned to pay attention to these simple moments. You never know which ones will stick. The most beautiful thing is: They are YOURS. Some seem unimpressive at the time, but years later they could be the ones that bring a lump to your throat and butterflies to your tummy.

Pay attention.