Living in the Moment

 No, that's not a typo down below these first two paragraphs, but yes, it is the signature you see often see on my emails when I send you Wall links. But like many "auto" bits in our digital lives, email signatures often become part of the "white noise," of 21st century communication, like the supermarket checkout ritual: "Have a good day." "You too."

I actually spent a good deal of time composing that signature, or "sig" as we often, and ironically, refer to it. And I too often forget it is there. I shouldn't, and I'll explain why - perhaps in too much detail - down below the signature:

"Who we are is a quality of the moment. What we have done in the past cannot be undone, and what we have promised for the future remains but a promise. So live each moment in the awareness that it defines you."

Hi there. Back again! OK, here we go.

A few days ago I was talking with my brother-by-another-mother, actually talking as "live on the telephone." As the conversation took turns it never would have done when we were growing up back in Springfield, Ohio, Dan used an interesting phrase a couple of times; "living in the 70s." 

Now I need to point out that up until the very early years of the 1970s, Dan and I had spent most of our lives in close proximity. So I interpreted the phrase as referring to those last couple of years "in the seventies" when we were attending Kalamazoo College. 

However, in the specific context of our current phone call, the phrase was a bit of a stretch. Strange, as Dan has a Ph.D in English from UNC, is an accomplished writer and doesn't use the language  as  casually as I sometimes do. So it wasn't until later that the sluggish lexicon of my mind realized that he was referring to our current situation - living with the interesting complexities of life in our seventh decade.

Whoa. Strange collision of realities. In 1970 we were both completing our undergraduate degrees and rushing off to graduate school and matrimony. Hence we were, naturally, infallible, invincible and immortal - full of, as a short-lived soft drink of the era, 3V Cola, put it, Vim, Vigor and Vitality! Yet, in this current reality we are living the year that marks three-quarters of a century existing here on the third rock from the sun. We are both retired, in second marriages, proud grandfathers, a tad less infallible and invincible, and certainly convinced of our own mortality. But, and this is important - also somewhat wiser.

Which, naturally brings us to the question of which “70s” is preferable? The “ins and im” and “3 Vs” of the 1970s or the more compromised, but more thoughtful, reality of our chronological 70s? And what does that have to do with my email signature?

To explain I must return to the year when Dan and I popped into the world seven days apart, in November of 1948. This year also saw a song called Civilization by Danny Kaye and The Andrews Sisters climbing the charts. The fact that it was better known as Bongo, Bongo, Bongo, I Don't Want to Leave the Congo, is a clear indication that this was a song so replete with cultural insensitivity that it must have been offensive even then in 1948. However, like many bits of art removed from their chronological reality and examined with a more reflective eye and ear, we discover some insight in this, admittedly catchy, little tune.  

First, Mr. Kaye sings a couple of lines about the hassle of life in "civilization," that concludes:

"When they've got two weeks vacation 

They hurry to vacation ground.”

Causing the Andrews Sisters to inquire:

"What do they do, darling?"

To which Kaye responds,

"They fish and they swim

But that's what I do all year round!"

Which makes me consider the notion that in our youth, my early 20s of 1970, my focus was, as it is for most 20-year-olds, on the future and how my many successes were going to change the world.  Then "real life," arrives with its ups and downs, successes and failures, compromises and challenges.  And, strangely, somewhere along the line, the old gospel notion of "laying your burden down," creeps into your consciousness. 

Perhaps having the freedom to "swim and fish" isn't your idea of what you want to do "all year round," but still the idea of that freedom does have a certain allure.

And so I realize that the advice contained in my email signature, about cherishing and living in the moment, is something to which I should pay continuing attention. I have made my peace with the fact that I am not going to change the world single-handedly. But perhaps my children, and those myriad other children whom I taught over my 50 odd years in the classroom, will.

In the meantime, they will think, write and create -

"But that's what I do all year round!" 🤪