I brought this phrase home with me today from a presentation on mindfulness that I otherwise half-listened to. It reminded me of a moment when I was about fourteen. I was walking up that part of the driveway that we called the Gray Hill (couldn’t tell you why, as it was all red clay). It was summer, and I was barefooted. I don’t remember where I was going, maybe just to check the mail. At the time I had this minor ritual whereby if I stepped on a clump of grass with one foot, I would look for a similar clump so I could step on it with the other foot. I was looking for such a clump of grass when I suddenly thought, “This moment will not come again. I should remember it.” I’m sure I have said that to myself many times over the years, but for some reason, that one took. Everything about it is still on file, somewhere near the front: the grass, the heat, the red clay, the loblolly pines on either side of the road, the sounds of all the weird summer insects. There were no doubt a thousand such moments as I was growing up, so why did I keep that one? And how did I save it in such detail, with no recording device other than the one I was born with?

Today, right now, in this moment, (metaphorically at least) I am zipping around the banks of the Kuskokwim River on a four-wheeler, watching the river ice breaking, rushing downstream, jamming up, rising closer and closer to the top of the dike. . .and I wonder. How does standing on a riverbank bank watching car-sized chunks of ice go by compare to walking to the mailbox? They are both moments in my life, and neither will come again.