Forty!

I carried heavy things this morning for my exercise, helping my son move furniture into and out of  his apartment.

We live moments at a time.  Usually the moments go swiftly by without us noticing them, until something happens to slow time down and we become more aware of a moment, or moments.  It's like when you are in a car and it is crashing, an accident is taking place and you are right there, and all your senses are working overtime, and it really does seem as though time becomes sluggish, and everything happens in slow motion, heavy moments. 

The Zen Buddhists belief is all about living in the moment, mindfulness.  Zen masters have two tasks: sitting zazen (meditating) and sweeping or raking.  It is a quiet, slow life.  They believe that there are 65 moments in a finger-snap.

It is rather difficult to define a moment.  Dictionary.com does it like this:
" moment:
1  an indefinitely short period of time; instant: I'll be with you in a moment. (me: indefinitely short?  Isn't that an oxymoron?)
2  the present time or any other particular time (usually preceded by the): He is busy at the moment. (me: the present is another problematic area of definition.)
3  a definite period or stage, as in a course of events; juncture: at this moment in history.
4  importance or consequence: a decision of great moment.
5  a particular time or period of success, excellence, fame, etc. : His big moment came in the final game."

The funny embarrassed moment when you discover in the morning, just before you about to leave to visit your son, that your dress is on back to front.
The ecstatic moment in bed yesterday morning.
The miserable moment remembering someone you love who has died.
The tearful moment in a book.
The heart-full moment of pride in your child.
The agonised moment at the airport when your person finally disappears behind the security barrier.
The heady moment at the top of the hill just before you let go.
The overwhelming moment when you behold beauty, be it in nature, art, music, dance, theatre, or a movie.
The angry moment when someone hoots at you because you have been dreaming and haven't noticed that the traffic light has changed from red to green.
The awful disappointed moment when you realise your child has lied to you/done something terrible.
The surge of happiness moment when you see your husband open the door and come into the light from the dark and stormy night through which he has been driving home.

Perhaps we hold all the moments we have had in our heads and our bodies.  They are all stored somewhere in our memories, like droplets in a vast lake, and sometimes a bead bubbles to the surface, led there by a line in a song, sunlight on the garden, a person entering the room.  Others stay hidden at the bottom of the lake forever. 

I love photographs but these days it seems that too many photographs are taken of too many moments.  Some people document their entire lives, the meals they eat, concerts they go to, their pink and silver gumboots on the sidewalk, so many images every day, everything snapped by a smartphone.  What you are doing is creating a likeness of the moment.  It is wonderful to have a photograph of a particularly beautifully set-out meal, with all the colours represented on the plate, and perfect presentation, something unique.  But it is not important to take a picture each time you eat out.  Sometimes you really do have to wake up and smell the coffee, not take a picture of it.

Having said that, I was looking through some old photographs and I'm so glad that these moments were captured.  That I can savour them again and again, remember and honour the people pictured in them.

My nephew and his pretty wife on their wedding day

And sixty or so years before, my mum and dad getting married.  They had no thoughts in their minds of their grandchildren having weddings of their own!

I love this photograph because of the head in the front, it seems to me to demonstrate the excitement of a wedding, and everyone wanting to see, and stepping in front in order to do that!  But the focus is still on the bride and groom who are the most important, while the guest stepping in front is blurry, unrecognisable.

And here is my mum with two of her granddaughters and her honorary grandson, who called her Grauntie.  These darling little things are all grown up and each have a delightful baby of their own.

Ben came to visit us for a week when he was ten years old and Emma was just a small baby.  He was always an interesting person, even as a ten-year old.  And finding this made me remember so much about that visit, the way that house sat on its corner, the strange place that was King William's Town, the new baby I wore outside my body, the sweet boy curious about nature and everything else too.  

Isak and Elaine, Tim's parents, before they had any of the four babies they produced, or any of the ups and downs of life.. They were in love and happy in this moment.

My dad telling Jess a secret.  The perfect composition, a triangle, the sweetest of serious-eyed toddlers, and my old young dad.

And lastly how these two small grinning urchins turned into my aunt and my mother, holding their grandchildren, so many years later.

Nora and Joan, circa 1925

Nora and Joan with grandchildren 1980

We wouldn't be able to compare these moments without photographs.  We wouldn't be able to hold images so easily in our heads without photographs to inform them.  These photographs are our icons.  We sort through them from time to time, remembering all the moments of our days.

The snow mermaid has little delicate footprints of birds and squirrels stepping so lightly over her, and even a rabbit crossed her head.  There are little remains of a bird's feast on her belly, and the leaves of the rhododendron brush past her face sometimes, blown by the breeze.  But she slumbers on in the way of snow mermaids, who have been brought into being by a woman who walks carefully by, even though she knows the mermaid is not really sleeping.