Have you ever fallen in love with the way the winter sunlight filters into your living room? Does the color of the day seem golden when you recall cherished memories? Can you step outside the whirlwind of your world long enough for a moment to last forever?
Thoughts like these tend to swirl around in my head as I approach the end of an era. Before a major change, like moving out of a home, a job or a city, I feel compelled to encase every detail in amber, to preserve every detail in my mind’s eye. Doing this requires a pause. It requires stillness.
As I begin to say my goodbyes to the people, the pets, the plants, the views, the smells, the feelings and all the things I cherish in my daily routine, I begin to construct the latest exhibit in my museum of memories. This Octavio Paz poem describes so well those little moments, often overlooked but always hiding in every afternoon. It describes those seemingly insignificant things that add up to equal a lifetime.
I happen to love change and all the fear, excitement and freedom that comes along with it. Somehow, this poem has been speaking to me, reminding me to hold on to each moment because it is not only precious, but limited. Whether we embrace change or avoid it, in the end it always finds us.
Between Going and Coming by Octavio Paz
Between going and staying
the day wavers,
in love with its own transparency.
The circular afternoon is now a bay
where the world in stillness rocks.
All is visible and all elusive,
all is near and can’t be touched.
Paper, book, pencil, glass,
rest in the shade of their names.
Time throbbing in my temples repeats
the same unchanging syllable of blood.
The light turns the indifferent wall
into a ghostly theater of reflections.
I find myself in the middle of an eye,
watching myself in its blank stare.
The moment scatters. Motionless,
I stay and go: I am a pause.
Are you moving?