If we want life to slow down, to make moments memorable and our lives unforgettable, we may want to remember to harness the power of firsts. In our daily routines, it’s also an idea to consider how we can turn the ordinary into something more extraordinary in order to stretch the river of time. It may be little things.
Meik Wiking
Preface: I sat in the coffee shop today and worked on two pieces. One was about lacking conflict – what might the story look like? The other is this post. Subsequently, I came home and read an article on the art of making happy memories from which I pulled the above quote. A nice dovetail to my coffee shop thoughts.
If I try, and I don’t have to try too hard, I can conjure up almost any image of my time with my ex-fiancee, B. Especially all of the little moments. For a while after she left, I couldn’t help but to see and feel these moments. There were times I would be driving and I could sense/feel her hand on my leg – I’d want to reach out to hold it. There were nights when I’d roll over in my sleep expecting her to be by my side. I avoided cooking for the longest time because the vision of her cutting bread and pouring wine and prepping vegetables, the vision of my hand on her hip and kisses on her neck were simply too real.
After a while, when I could actually help myself, I would choose to sit with those memories and images. They hurt and felt good at the same time. There were still times when I had no control over my thoughts – something would trigger an image and the waves would come crashing down. One of the best paragraphs I’ve read on grief is from Elizabeth Gilbert:
Grief… happens upon you, it’s bigger than you. There is a humility that you have to step into, where you surrender to being moved through the landscape of grief by grief itself. And it has its own timeframe, it has its own itinerary with you, it has its own power over you, and it will come when it comes. And when it comes, it’s a bow-down. It’s a carve-out. And it comes when it wants to, and it carves you out — it comes in the middle of the night, comes in the middle of the day, comes in the middle of a meeting, comes in the middle of a meal. It arrives — it’s this tremendously forceful arrival and it cannot be resisted without you suffering more… The posture that you take is you hit your knees in absolute humility and you let it rock you until it is done with you. And it will be done with you, eventually. And when it is done, it will leave. But to stiffen, to resist, and to fight it is to hurt yourself.
Elizabeth Gilbert
Now, those unexpected waves come a lot less frequently, and I spend a lot less time remembering. The cards and love notes have been put back in their proper place. Sometimes, though, I still want to be in the storm – to feel the heaviness of that water on my skin, to drown just a little bit, to remember what all of those things felt like…
I chose the quote that I opened with because it highlights why moving on has been so hard for me. In the studies the article cites, it talks about how many of our happiest memories are usually happy first experiences. The article describes a reminiscence bump – a period of life in which we experience a lot of firsts (between the ages and 15 and 30). In my long and flat marriage, we had stopped having firsts… my memory essentially stopped, my growth was retarded. Since that time, I’ve been on an intense journey of firsts, alone and with others – I love when someone chooses to walk with me. I’ve also learned not to take the small moments for granted. They are where magic resides. I’ve practiced being present in the world around me. With B, I paid attention to nearly everything (good and bad). I’m not sure I had ever been more fully present. Dinner together, coffee in the morning on the sofa, holding hands… none of it got old. Everything had the power and invigoration of an amazing first. I had learned to slow time. I had learned to turn the ordinary in to the extraordinary.
Now I’m learning to control the spigot of memory – letting it trickle out when I want it to, or come rushing at me full-pressured like an uncapped hydrant. I might be playing with fire, but tonight, a year after I got engaged to a beautifully complex woman, I’m going to listen to some Glass Animals and Wild Child, cook some bolognese, have some nice wine and bread, hold close to my heart some fond memories, and continue to feel, love, and live fully – in the moment, in the past, and in the future I’ve been painting these last few years.