Change of Venue

Is it just me, or is the present a complete enigma to anyone else?

Let me see if I can walk you through the Jell-O that is my brain these days. I would advise galoshes, if you have them.

I totally get the past. I was there (most of the time), and have a relatively decent memory for a woman of my decrepitation -- selective, perhaps, but only in the happiest sort of way in which I tend to recall the things that made me laugh, or smile or stop in wonder, or the things that filled me with inspiration or compassion or understanding. Those golden, wondrous moments are treasured tokens of my life that I pull out and polish and savor and share with anyone who's distracted enough at the moment to let me start telling one of my stories. I have a jillion of 'em.

The future is a little blurry to me, but that's okay, too. It means I can pretend that there are mostly happy things awaiting me there. I love to anticipate -- an upcoming visit from one of my grown kids, an email from a friend, the wedding of my son, Christmas, an extended trip to an old familiar place -- the anticipation is sometimes better than the reality, even when the reality is pretty darn great. Anticipating is almost the same as reminiscing, and maybe better, because you have no pesky reality to bog you down and cast shadows on your hopes. Sometimes the future inspires anxiety -- the unknown, the uncontrollable factors, the possible failures. Even my PollyAnna persona is not powerful enough to deny the possibility of some negative outcomes. That's what ulcers were created to remind us of.

The thing that just flummoxes me is the present. One moment, I'm basking in the (sometimes murky) warm waters of my anticipation, and the next moment, those waters are rushing behind me and I see my future flashing through my present and into my past. The older I get, the faster the water drains!
Last night, I stood at the Mirador de San Nicolas, watching the sun scorch the walls of the Alhambra (translated: the Big Red) with flames of its name's sake, even as my breath puffed in steamy clouds around my head. It has been four years since I've stood there.

We take the students to the Mirador when they're feeling homesick for the USA (or mom, or long hot showers, whatever), usually at night when the lights of the Alhambra enhance its mystery. It helps the students remember why they came to Spain, and why they're glad they're here. Best cure ever. It works for us, too, even though we don't really get homesick; just tired from managing thirty or forty college students' daily crises, or keeping our own kids happy, or making the finances work . . . y'know, stuff. Standing high above the city of Granada, looking over the lights and the mountains in the distance, with the enchanted fortress displayed in its majesty, everything feels right.

I feel like I've never been away. Old friends here look the same. Their kids are bigger, which is just fun. The palmeras from our favorite pasteleria are just as delicious. The streets smell the same, for better or for worse. The same vendors are hawking the same wares on the same corners. The store windows are like the trees -- the only things changed are the colors. Wasn't it just the other day we stood on this corner and chatted with the students while we waited for our bus to arrive? How could it have been four years ago (or nine, or fifteen) that we bought bread at Panaderia San Anton, and that sweet woman tossed in a couple of salted rolls as a thank you, just because she's nice?

The wedding is over; those joyous memories are still crowding through my mind, waiting to be sorted and tucked away. Christmas was a blur of our growing family of ten crowded into a newlywed-to-be's apartment. All the time I spent planning and preparing is now a part of my past, and what was the eagerly awaited future is pooling around me, feeling like it was never not my present.

When I was a girl, I had a recurring dream that I was holding on to something that was too big for my fingers -- the object varied; a baton, a steering wheel, a toy. As my fingers closed around it, what I really remembered was the sensation of it fitting there, and then it suddenly would begin to grow until it was too big -- as big as the whole world expanding into the universe. The dreams became a part of my past, and until today I attibuted them to anxiety (which runs in my family a bit), but I think I just didn't know enough to understand.

In this very moment, I think that what I see is that my hands are too small -- the present is too big to be contained in them -- it spills over and runs away behind me. What I'm afraid of now is that if I don't open my eyes wide enough, I will carelessly miss an irretrievable treasure. Maybe I'm just being greedy, but I feel an urgency to hold onto these moments, or at least appreciate them while I am in them.

If I can do that, I can experience the joy three-fold -- as I anticipate its advent, in the moment of its unfolding, and as I savor the memory. Maybe that's all I can ask of time.