a moment

i may have done it again. i may have tapped into that thing i used to be able to find once upon a time. when i lived in colorado, i could do it. that's where i figured it out. i guess she taught it to me in a way, if i am honest. it's difficult to describe, but i'll give it a shot.

there was a point where i could take solace in my insignificance. that sounds very depressing, but i do not at all mean it that way. there are those who speak of enlightenment as an expansion into the everything, growing until you feel like you connect to it all, all of creation humming together as the great om inside of you. i believe this to be my version of that. it is more subtle than i would have expected, less of a powerful realization and a choir of angels than a tickling at the base of the soul, but one that fills that soul up from the bottom in a way that you may not realize is happening until you have emptied out again.

i played in snow. for anyone who lives with snow, this is a meaningless experience, i suppose, but i was born where it snows and spent much time in a place where it does not. boxing day was magnificent. great, huge flakes fell slowly and softly, the ground was already covered with enough snow to keep my feet from meeting the grass beneath no matter how hard i stepped. the air was crisp, cold and clean. the world as white, and there were snow angels to be made and king of the mountain to be played. i watched the cheeks of my children turn to apples, watched their breath turn to fog, watched them wiggle with delighted discomfort as the snow found the weak spots in their clothing.

i took 5 minutes for myself while they were winding down, and i left them with my aunt. i needed a few moments to be alone with my childhood in a way, to be the kid i was once and had forgotten, or let go, or had taken, or whatever. i needed a moment to enjoy this, to be happy. i went around to the front and stood in the front yard in which i had played often as a young boy, let the wind whip me and let the snow fall on my face, and it happened. every flake hitting my face said 'you are here. you are here. you are here.', and i understood what those flakes were telling me. i felt the world all around me, the whole of creation all around me, felt so small and noticed, truly noticed where i was in it all. i felt my own smallness, my own part of the wholeness, saw myself as part of it.

i felt those flakes tell me their brothers and sisters were landing all around and covering so many other parts of the same world, that their cousins the raindrops were coming down somewhere warmer, that their further relatives, the rays of the sun and the moon, were touching those places not being coated with precipitation, and that those i loved everywhere were being touched by them at the same moment, and that i was no different than the rocks and the trees and the grasses and, yes, the very snowflakes themselves, as i was being covered with no less and no more than they. i was small, i was a part. i was tiny and felt the hugeness of it all. it was magnificent.

i have no idea how long it lasted, and as quickly as it came upon me it was gone. i did not mourn its passing, strangely, like i have mourned the passing of so many of my moments of opening up. i was simply glad for its having visited me, happy i could have been part of everything for that brief span, thankful for the time playing in the snow with the kids preparing me for it. later in the day we would go sledding, and it would not be the same. it was to be just joy, just fun, just worldly good time, but even then i did not belittle it for its lack of grandiosity, but was simply happy to be there for that time, wind whipping me as i raced down the hills and snow fighting me as i dragged my exhausted crew back up them. life would intrude again as it always does, but for a time i had it again. i understood the beauty.