{"id":304,"date":"2021-05-06T15:20:43","date_gmt":"2021-05-06T23:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/?p=304"},"modified":"2021-07-04T17:51:43","modified_gmt":"2021-07-05T01:51:43","slug":"pay-attention-on-purpose-to-this-moment-right-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/?p=304","title":{"rendered":"Pay attention. . .on purpose. . .to this moment. . .right now"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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\u2019t tell you why, as it was all red clay). It was summer, and I was barefooted. I don\u2019t 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, \u201cThis moment will not come again. I should remember it.\u201d I\u2019m 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?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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\u2019t tell you why, as it was all red clay). It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[196,195,197],"class_list":["post-304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings-about-language-and-life","tag-memory","tag-mindfulness","tag-paying-attention"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":306,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions\/306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}