Yesterday, as my husband and I took a walk on one of the unmarked bike trails on the Mount Holyoke Range, that dread feeling I get from being lost started to rise up. I could feel my stomach tightening, my heart beating harder, not from the mild ascent, but from the sense of not being sure where I was. Even though I’d taken this path several times and it’s always a longer trek than I anticipate before I reach the familiar red-blazed trail that leads to the parking lot, I started to worry that I’d taken a wrong turn and would be wandering in circles for the rest of the day before I found my way back.
Where am I? I frowned at a rock display, which I was sure I’d never seen before.
And then the answer came, soft and quiet:
You are here.
Photo by Shel Horowitz
No divine voice–just my mind chattering back to itself. Nevertheless, it was a revelation. Instead of looking at this moment as confirmation that it was absolutely time to launch into full-blown panic, I could look at it as a blessing. Whether or not I was lost, I was here–in a spot worth finding, surrounded by moss-covered rocks, listening to a stream rippling in the distance.
In the Jewish tradition, the month that we are in (Elul–just before the new year) is a period of reflection, a time to seek forgiveness for “missing the mark” in our quest to be our best selves and to contemplate the obstacles that prevent our essential selves from shining through. As I gazed up at the sunlight slicing through the trees, I realized that the point was to be present with this moment, and each discrete moment, rather than focusing so much on the destination, or even on the next step of the journey.
When I practice hard parts in a piano piece my inner perfectionist has a blast chastising me for not being able to get a complicated or fast progression down smoothly. But when I really focus on slowing things down, listening to and enjoying the notes as I repeat them, and sometimes intentionally manipulating the rhythms or dynamics in order to zero in on what I’m doing, rather than to think about the passage as a link to the rest of the piece, eventually I can trick my fingers into learning. In other words, if I focus on the moment of the passage, rather than on the ways it’s impeding me in getting to my “destination,” I can often get a little bit closer to playing with more fluidity. And in writing, delving into “the moment” of where I’m at can give me a whole new level of appreciation and attention for a single sentence, or even the choice of a word.
Ten minutes after I had my “you are here–wherever that is” moment, I found myself at the familiar intersection at the head of the path. There was the red-blazed trail, with the broken v-shaped tree trunk and the pile of rocks that marked the fork. I’d never been lost! The path merely looked different, as it often does in varying seasons and periods of rain and drought. Maybe, if I continue to pay attention to the discrete moments of beauty it offers me, I’ll stop having those panic moments and can simply enjoy being “here.”
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