Right Here, Right Now

"Discovering real goodness comes from appreciating very simple experiences. We are not talking about how good it feels to make a million dollars or finally graduate from college or buy a new house, but we are speaking here of the basic goodness of being alive--which does not depend on our accomplishments or fulfilling our desires. We experience glimpses of goodness all the time, but we often fail to acknowledge them."--Chogyam Trungpa, from The Sacred Path of the Warrior

I live in my head. I think about what I need to do tomorrow, and what I accomplished (or didn't accomplish) yesterday. I think of what I'll wear to work, how thin I was at 25, who was I dating then? What was his last name? I think about past slights but also past pleasures--those that get magnified so they're even more brilliant now than when they were actually happening.

Because I live in my head, my real life passes me by, like reality is an old friend passing on the street whom I fail to acknowledge. I find myself tripping a lot, not paying attention to where I'm going or remembering why I went into another room (what was I looking for?) I've been misplacing things, leaving my eyeglasses at my friend Alina's in Brooklyn, my "fashionable ladies with cocktails" umbrella on the "T," my leopard-spotted gloves on the train (luckily a kind older lady noticed them before I left without them.)

Right before Christmas, my mother gave me the assignment to take one picture every day of something that I noticed. It didn't have to be a great photograph (a good thing, too, because I'm a lousy photographer) just a moment captured, something noted and appreciated, even for a fleeting moment. I ended up taking a lot of pictures of my office because I like my new job and my parents had never seen where I worked.

I think I'll try again, though. I have an unused disposable camera, and more importantly, the desire to see beauty in an otherwise cold, drab January.