“But because we don’t know, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really.
"How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that’s so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even.
"How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.”
This spring is my 50th.
Can't think too consciously about when I started thinking about the arrival of spring other than it meant we could throw the winter gear back in the cedar closet upstairs or in the back of the front closet and retrieve the spring jackets and rain gear.
This spring seems special because the winter felt especially long.
Last year's crabapple hangs fiercely to its perch of last year, its future is as a new tree, perhaps, or more likely lunch for a bird or chipmunk.
The Bowles quote came across my path recently and it put up a figurative sign to stop and think about the passing of time, events, people, and opportunities.
I'm guilty, and I suspect you are too, of believing there is a raft of tomorrows right where today's came from and then more after that.
While that could be, this is the only version of today in which we get to live.
Its a challenge and really quite intimidating if we think of life this way - but from time to time I believe it's a good idea to think about those moments.
For some reason, a stop for a drink while riding the Elroy-Sparta State Trail with my friend during high school stands out in my mind. It was a hot day and we came upon a house with an old-fashioned Pepsi machine in the backyard for bikers to patronize during their ride. Between the trail and the machine was a small stream, no more than a foot wide. We stopped, got our bottle of soda which had crystals of ice floating in it and sat down next to the stream - taking off our shoes and socks to cool our heels in the cool stream.
Year later I rode the trail again, and while I'm pretty sure I located the house - the machine was gone. Even if it had been there, I couldn't recapture that moment again if I tried.
We have conversations or moments with friends we like to think will flow like an unending stream. Next time you share a moment, commit it to memory, and be thankful for that blip of time you enjoyed.
As the motivational phrase reminds us... yesterday is past, tomorrow isn't here, so enjoy today - that's why it's called the present.
This IS our first, and only, time around - pay attention.
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