Thursday, May 11, 2017
A Minute Meditation
To really appreciate a place or time----to extract the poignant essence of it--one should see it in the light of a departure, a leavetaking.
-- Lawrence Durrell --
from Livia, Book 2 of The Avignon Quintet
Is this true? If so, it's sad that one can only appreciate a time or a place when one leaves it.
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I presume what D is actually saying is that, just as absence makes the heart grow fonder, departure concentrates tthe attention so that the important things stand out...
ReplyDeleteMudpuddle,
DeleteThat's what I've been thinking also. However, it is sad that we have to leave a place or person to really appreciate that place or person.
on the other hand, i remember hiking around a corner and being totally stunned by a sudden mountain view... but perhaps that's not the same thing...
DeleteMudpuddle,
DeleteThat seems more like surprise to me. What happened to your perception of that mountain view later? Did it persist?
Hi Fred. I have to say that I agree with this. I think I live in memories. Lately I've been trying to put my entire life down to paper. Sounds nuts, I know. It started out as a certain experiment on a specific theme but I kept adding stuff.
ReplyDeleteWill my memoirs be interesting to anyone else? Who knows, but I am thoroughly enjoying living in the past as I write it.
On the other hand, what I hate about moving is that all the people, my friends, the places I frequent, my routine...once I've left all that and gone somewhere else, the previous place is no longer real, but a memory. It has the same visceral reality as a dream. I speak from experience because I've moved so often.
Which is perhaps why I am enjoying writing the past down. It momentarily resurrects those previous persons, places et al.
Whoa, got a little deep there. Sorry!
Sharon,
DeleteNo problem: The quotation leads to thinking about memories and leave-takings.
Have you read Lawrence Durrell's _Justine_? It's the first novel in his Alexandria Quartet, and he's doing the same thing. He has left Alexandria and is now trying to capture the past on paper.
A great quotation from that novel is "The solace of such work as I do with brain and heart lies in this--that only there, in the silences of the painter or the writer can reality be reordered, reworked and made to show its significant side."
This short quotation has much truth to it.
ReplyDeleteThough I think that one can appreciate things without leaving them, the act of departure often leads to types of appreciation one takes for granted.
I find that imagining leaving something, or losing something that I am not leaving or losing helps me to appreciate what I have.
Brian,
DeleteI agree--it doesn't have to be that way, but I find that too often it is.
That's a thought--imagine one is leaving. That might produce some surprises, I suspect. The power of the imagination--perhaps that's what humans have that our fellow creatures lack.
I think this is the way it is more often than not because we are not living in the moment. We have taught ourselves to live so as to acquire memories rather than to live so as to experience the moment we are in. It does not have to be this way at all and I'm discovering that it isn't fated, but a matter of our own choice. We can live, camera to eye recording what is going on, or we can live one breath at a time, focused and completely present. The western world dwells in the past and the future but does everything it can to avoid right now. As I write this I am in a French Café, just finished a light meal, listening to Edith Piaf and entirely focused on this writing. And it is wonderful and even more memorable.
ReplyDeleteSteven,
DeleteAre you talking about what is today being called "mindfulness"? If so, it is hard, for me anyway, as my mind is always wandering off on a book or film I had read or seen, or my next blog entry, or someplace I have to be or some people I'm going to meet.
I do it occasionally, but unfortunately not regularly.
Long ago I read something that has stayed with me, but I can't remember who said it. It was something to the effect that when eating a peach one should eat the peach, if that makes any sense.
science has discovered that occurrences outside ourselves are delayed by .004 seconds before being registered in the brain... this has no practical meaning, but may be significant philosophically...
Deletei'ts my understanding that mindfulness has more to do with living in the moment rather than inside the mind...
Mudpuddle,
DeleteWhat do you mean by living in the moment that wouldn't be in the mind?
Living in the moment is like flow, the mind, which is largely a mass of distraction gets out of the way and there is the immediacy of experience. I haven't done this often, but there have been times and I'm convinced it is possible through training and a tricky thing I'll call grace because it's what I understand best. It is, I think what is meant by praying constantly. Everything sent to one is accepted as gift and released. What would normally be an irritation or aggravation becomes a moment. I know I'm talking what sounds like nonsense, but I've seen and perceived it and even occasionally felt it.
DeleteTx, Steven, you said it. Better than I could...
DeleteMudpuddle,
DeleteYou obviously understand him better than I do.
Steven,
ReplyDeleteWhile I don't completely understand your explanation of the "moment," I think you are referring to something more profound than then what Durrell is talking about in the quotation.
I'm not sure what you mean by "grace." That sounds to me like you are suggesting something linked to divine intervention, or so my long-ago Catholic upbringing would suggest.
In any case, it appears to be an experience that can't be conveyed through words, at least to me anyway.
I think this is true. Remember the old saying, 'You don't know what you have until you lose it?' (Or words to that effect.) This is kind of a similar thing except that Durrell seems to be saying that we should try and appreciate the immediate as if we were about to lose it? But maybe that would be too unsettling. I prefer to look at the familiar each day as if it were something new and even eye-opening. I try to do that as much as possible.
ReplyDeleteYvetter,
DeleteYes, I think Durrell is saying the same thing in his own way.
Two ways? Interesting.
1. Look at the familiar each day as if we were about to lose it.
2. look at the familiar each day as if it were something new and even eye-opening.
Yvette,
DeleteSorry about the misspelling of your name. Another successful attack by the Spelling Demon.