Friday, December 29, 2006

Where is the snow?

It’s the end of the year. Some years, the mountains are covered in feet of snow accommodating happy skiers and snowboarders sliding down their glossy slopes. This year, the flatlands are bare and the mountains are thin. Today on the next to the penultimate day of the year, it was seasonably cold – low 20s. Yet it felt biting cold. We are out of shape for winter in northern Vermont and it is easy to complain of the cold, the lack of the snow, and anything else you might care to complain about at the end of another calendar year. We like to complain. There are industries devoted to our complaints. Name a complaint and there is a product available to assuage your feelings of inadequacy. Could your life be complete without any of this? That question is an invitation. Try to live life without feeling that some product will complete you. Try to live your life separating your well-being from everything that you do.

At the end of the day, what happened today is what happened today. Some of the things that happened today we had a hand in, shaped its course and path. Other things, occurred outside of our sphere of influence. Whatever occurred it is in the past. Done. Fini. Yet, we act as if it is not the case. Reliving the past, projecting ourselves into the future, endless commentary about what is supposedly happening now (supposedly because we relate more to the idea of what is happening now than what is actually happening now). We tend to hold on to the past try to rework it as if the artist’s hand could revise time. Fat chance. Time, according to some quirk of physics only moves in one direction. Go figure. Our minds, however, can move in three directions – past, present and future. As we look towards the future of the New Year, see if the mind can notice this present.

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