Moments - A Cogitation

The other night my wife and I saw Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. The main punch line of the play is when the newly dead Emily says to the Stage Manager, "Does anyone ever realize life while they live it...every, every minute?" The Stage Manager replies, “No. Saints and poets maybe…they do some.”

I don’t agree with the Stage Manager’s response. I think we all “do some.” The “some” that we do are called “moments.”

Life is all about moments and the stories that come from them. Sometimes they are humorous. Sometimes they are sad. Sometimes they are romantic. Sometimes a moment is so private that you can’t tell the story publicly but you still have the the memory and the story.

I collect moments like some people collect coins or books.  I am always on the lookout for a good one. Moments are clearly important for everyone.  Did you ever think about all of the songs that speak of moments:

This Magic Moment – The Drifters

Moments to Remember – The Four Lads

Magic, Moments - Perry Como

It Only Takes a Moment – Hello Dolly

One of the things that make us human is that we tell stories. Moments lead to stories.  Without a moment you have no stories. 

We all have some moments. Some are obvious like our first date, our first kiss, losing our virginity, our wedding, the birth of a child, seeing the Grand Canyon or Chartes Cathedral for the first time, or seeing your first pileated woodpecker. To make life exciting you need to make yourself available to experiences. Open your senses… your eyes, your ears, your nose. But most of all get out there and look for moments.

Photography helped me learn to see, allowing me up to gather more moments. Even when I don’t have a camera with me I am constantly looking for a picture. Be careful – you don’t want to look like a scanning radar – but do keep yourself alert to opportunities. Sunsets, sunrises, rainbows are common but with the right person or at the right time they become a moment.  To me, full moons are always a moment. However, I remember only a few of these – a lunar eclipse, the moon over the Eiffel Tower with my arm around my wife, a swooping owl.

Moments are not just opportunities of the senses. Sometimes being in the right place at the right (or wrong) time is what causes the memory. My being in the air at 6:00 am on September 11, 2001, was not a lot of fun, but I do have a story to tell.

We all know that music and scent can bring us back to a moment. The first line of the first story I ever wrote was, “I remember it as a summer of The Graduate, “Cherish”, and Windsong” … three sensations that brought back a moment.

So, fellow Boomers, what do you remember when you hear the line, “Hello darkness my old friend,” or “I can’t get no satisfaction,” or “Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away?” Or… do you remember who you were with the first time you heard Vic Flick’s guitar riff Dum-Di-Di-Dum-Dum…  (Yes, the James Bond Theme)?

Rarely does TV provide a memorable moment but one that jumps out at me was watching Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald in real time. And a few years later we watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon.

So, we all need to be alert and looking for moments. When we find a good moment, we want to make sure that it has a lot of momentum. I am absolutely sure that my children are tired of hearing about some of my momentous moments. But, that’s OK; I have a granddaughter to tell my stories to now.

And since I argued with Thornton Wilder at the beginning, I think it only fair that I let him close. 

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”