Instant Zen

I want to live in the present. I rarely do.

I am a worrier. I obsess about the past and what could have been. I worry about the future and what might happen. Lost is the present, the now, the only part that really matters, the only part that directly touches me. These preoccupations distract me from being in the moment and seeing the world, really seeing it.

So often, I look at my girls and rather than seeing them for the precious beautiful people they are, I see them as distractions: impediments to what I want to do. The wonder of their love, the marvel of their existence is obscured by this fog of thoughts, worries, concerns about the past and future, neither of which I can do anything about.

I wish to control my own thoughts, to quiet my mind, experience more fully the world around me. I think that is much of what I seek in my quest for God: being able to quiet my mind and actually feel life, connect with it. During my religious youth I was never able to successfully pray or mediate, the chatter of a thousand thoughts drowning out the voice of God.

The only time I have ever really lived in the present has been on long-distance bicycle trips. I have done several 1000-1500 mile rides, each taking 2-3 weeks. Most of these rides were done alone, just me, my bike, a tent and sleeping bag, a couple changes of clothes. When I started these rides I always had ambitions of deep introspection, intense reflection. I would bring notebooks and pencils. I never used them. My thoughts were very immediate and short: the road, the cars, my legs, the next hill or water stop. If I stopped for a break, I could get myself to think about where would I overnight, what would I eat, how far could I go. It may sound like I was thinking a lot, but I wasn't. These thoughts we all very short, a second or less, sometimes a minute during a stop. My mind was washed clean by this shower of trivial minutia, a mental sandblaster.

Within minutes of getting on the bike, my mind would be a blank slate, gone was the veil of worry obscuring my view of the world. If I looked up, I really saw the trees, birds, cars, people, houses. I lived, absolutely and fully, in the now. My mind was open, spongelike, to the sensory reality of living.

It has been 3 years since I last went on a ride, the first being 10 years ago. Yet, if I pause for even a moment, I remember. I remember a corn field outside of Dubuque where I slept in a savage thunderstorm, an empty road in Ontario that stretched off in a perfectly straight line to the horizon, the raw terror of sharing the Trans-Canadian Highway with triple-tandem logging trucks. Sleeping in a campground in Ohio and a cemetery in West Virginia, drafting an Amish carriage for 10 miles in upstate New York, the soybean fields of Illinois as infinite and uniform as a green rustling ocean, smoking brakes going down the truly endless mountains of Pennsylvania. I remember horrible, bitter people and incredibly wonderful generous people. I remember them all, my open, uncluttered mind having soaked up the unfiltered experience of existence.

I want to fully experience the present in which our lives unfold. I want to stop seeing so much of the past and future. I want to see my daughters, the trees, the hawks circling in a limpid Texas sky. I want to feel the passion of a kiss, the love of a friend, the hug of a child.

I'm looking for the present, I'll let you know when I find it.