What is Life?

My family sometimes loses patience with my cutting out of interesting articles for everyone to read, cute cartoons to save, and all kinds of stuff that I think will make us better people, make our household run better, help us to work more efficiently, and on and on and you get my drift. Part of the reason I cut them out is that I want to discard the magazine, but I don’t want to lose the ideas, so I file them, but in the short term, they can certainly add to the problem of clutter. This morning I ran across a random piece of paper on which I had written a quote that I thought at the time was brilliant, but today, I am not feeling it quite so much. It says: “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” In my kitchen, I have had a long vertical cartoon on my frig, that shows a baby creeping toward the end of a tall diving board, and then shows a progression of him going off the board as a toddler, then falling as a kid, then a bored adolescent, then a joyous young adult, and a businessman in suit and tie, then a possible retiree, and finally an oldster, letting go of his cane and grabbing his knees for that final cannonball. At the bottom is a small pool, with a great splash of water and at the edge is a tombstone. The quote is “LIFE: It’s not the size of the splash, but the joy you find along the way.” Before I looked at them together, I thought they said the same thing, but now I see I was wrong. If we measure our life, or our success, or our happiness only by the moments that take our breath away, we might be waiting a long time in between to consider it well lived. But if, along the way, we see the joy in every day, in the small things that bring comfort, or that lighten someone else’s day, or that are just a joy in the doing, then life is full indeed, and there is no waiting involved. If you awaken to the smell of fresh coffee being brewed, and it is your beverage of choice, then that aroma can bring so many things to you, the ‘joy along the way’, of knowing that someone wants to please you, or even if you set up a timer to put on the coffee the night before, the pleasure of having a cup of fresh brew, hot and ready when you are, a small pleasure that you can start your day with. This morning, I got up early, and changed the linens on my bed. I love the feeling of fresh linens, so that the next time I lay down in my own bed, ‘the joy along the way’ will involve the self-care that I took the time for, the ability I had in my own strength to accomplish that task, and the clean fresh smell that will greet me when I fall into the bed next. The moments that have taken my breath away are indeed those high point memories that we so love to review and to talk about. They are the stuff of day dreams. I remember seeing the murals of Diego Rivera in person in Mexico City. It did indeed take my breath away. I remember strolling through the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, and wondering of my forbears were ever there, and what did they think of what they saw. And I remember standing outside the British Museum, having seen the Elgin Marbles, and being quite amazed at how small they actually are. All of these were breathtaking events in my life, and it isn’t that I don’t want or expect to have more of them. I do and I will, I hope. But these memories are no match for the joy and the laughter that I experienced yesterday when my niece came with her lovely boyfriend to visit, and we looked at old photos of her Mom and Dad, both of blessed memory, and told stories and made dinner together, and I finally swept them out the door because I was tired. Huge breathtaking memories are no match for the family movies we watched, of a times when my parents were younger than I am today, smiling and laughing, and my girls as youngsters, and so many of our loved ones who have passed on by now were young and vibrant and full of life. They were so real, and we saw the joy again in their faces, and heard the loved voices that soothed us when we were ill, and scolded us when we needed it. Life is a series of twists and turns, and I am coming to realize that so much of it is just not of our own making or intention. We go along thinking that we have some control, and then the bubble bursts and we see that life, or depending on how religious you are, G-d, or the Universe has a different plan for you. I think that it is the grace with which you navigate that river of twists and turns that makes up a life. It is the joy in seeing the lovely things along the banks of that river, rather than worrying over much about the destination or whether there is going to be a thrill ride involved, and the quiet inlet that you arrive at, not finally, even though you make think it final, that is the story of a good life well lived. Happy Anniversary, Robert.