Surfing The Time Wave

"If we take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves." - Maria Edgeworth

I was just five at the time.

My parents had become good friends with the neighbors several doors down the road. I remember that we had walked over to their house one evening after dad came home from work. The plan was that we would help them paint the attic.

Time Marches On
Photo courtesy of Sonja Langford and http://unsplash.com

I think they ordered us pizza for supper.

The attic had been drywalled, taped, plastered, and sanded. It was ready for a coat of paint as a finishing touch. Being only five years old at the time, there was not a lot that I was capable of. However, I wanted to help, and so the grownups let me stir the paint in a five-gallon bucket.

I recall standing over the pail which was about half my height, holding a stick in my hands, and stirring for all I was worth. As I watched the swirling pattern in the liquid paint below me, I said to myself:

"Someday, many years from now, I will remember this moment in time. When I do, it will seem as though no time has passed at all."

We were there to paint the attic.
Photo courtesy of Mel Gama and https://pixabay.com

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven." - Solomon

Looking back at that instant,

I have often been amazed at what now seems like a precocious insight for a five year old. What passed through my mind then has certainly come to seem resoundingly true. The awareness of the truth of what I said to myself that day frequently reasserts itself in my consciousness. At random moments, I become aware that I am indeed surfing the time wave.

I only have this present moment.

The past may be real, but I am not immediately conscious of it. The future is as yet unrealized. My only reality is the present. As I write this, that reality is a keyboard beneath my fingers; a glowing screen before my eyes; a chair and floor below me, pressing upward. My conscious selection of thoughts to express, of words for this page.

Surfing The Time Wave
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By the time you read this, all these things will be in my past.

Writing this article will be no more than a memory.

I can't escape the present. I must simply be content, and learn to ride this wave as well as I possibly can.