Moments and My New Life Goal

I have not been very good about living in the moment.

I have not been stopping, for any number of seconds, to drink in that very second.

Or am I only being paranoid? Is it really even possible to ever so proverbially "live in the moment"?

It's like one of my very favorite quotes from Our Town by Thornton Wilder:

EMILY: "Does anyone ever realize life while they live it...every, every minute?"

STAGE MANAGER: "No. Saints and poets maybe...they do some."

We are surrounded by too much everyday, same-old, same-old mindblowing glory to ever be able to drink it in.

This is a bit of good ol' fashioned family lovin' and birthday glory.

This is a moment I try to catch about once a week - sunset from the cliffs over the ocean

And here I sit, in my pj's with some coffee, after a normal Monday, mired in the beginning stages of an essay that's due tomorrow. And I know, I know, I am unable to capture and remember everything that has and will happen to me during these months in Peru.

Normal Sunday night - English class planning. (And yes, I am reading Harry Potter in Spanish.)

In these past weeks I have been spectacularly sick, taken mid-terms, taught children, swam with sea lions, held babies, met a million aunts and uncles and cousins and finally bought my flight home.

Mixed feelings is an understatement.

I read a poem tonight called "Instantes", author unknown (attributed to Jorge Luis Borges but it's NOT him - I wrote my poetry final on that guy and I am backed up by a Google search). Here's a verse that struck me:

Por si no lo saben, de eso está hecha la vida,

sólo de momentos; no te pierdas el ahora.

The last line says "Don't lose the now."

It would be hard to lose this now - the water was so cold I was shocked into embracing the moment.

I also don't want to lose the "later". I want to live every moment and remember everything for ever and ever and ever. I want to learn Spanish and salsa dancing and change the world and wake up early and stay up late and eat at every single hole-in-the-wall cafe in Lima. So how should I establish a daily routine based on these wants and the desire to "not lose the now"?

Well, I'll likely drop out of school and join a Spanish-speaking, salsa-dancing troupe that performs in cafes and donates all merchandise sales to orphanages. Like a good ol' USA social justice artsy hipster, but in Spanish and with rhythm. Come catch a show.

I'll be like this guy who performed on the micro - except in cafes. Dancing.