Be Here Now

I think that’s an old hippie phrase. To me it means Live in the Moment for the Most Meaningful Life. As children, we do that naturally. We get lost in the moment, wonderment, curiosity. Then our parents teach us rules, routines, consequences. It gets harder and harder to live in the moment. When we’re all grown up and haired over (as my dad, an old hippie himself, says), we realize that living in the moment is where it’s at. Man. Oh to Be Here Now once again.

I for one yearn to live in the moment. Why is so hard? Example—the other day I was taking my morning walk along the lake. There was slushy ice chugging back and forth on the tide. It was lulling. The sun was melon colored. It tinted the water an even lighter melon color—like an unripe winter melon. The air was fresh and cold. I told myself—look, look at that! An image of my dad came to me: family road trip; he’s driving and reading every sign we pass; he’s saying to my brother and me: look, look at that! Of course we were all ennui and teenage attitude. We didn’t get it. But Dad was living in the moment.

On the beach walk, I was trying so hard to look, look! Less than a minute of that melon sun and fresh air and my moment was absconded again by lists for work, blog notes, and wondering if I had wine to go with dinner. I am getting better at Being Here Now…slowly, with daily practice.

I learned a lot about living in the moment during my three Peace Corps years in Cameroon. I wasn’t one of those volunteers who thought she was going to save the world. I had a simple, selfish mission of getting free travel. Because one thing I discovered early on was that it is much easier to Be Here Now when I am traveling. Without the routines and deadlines, a traveler can wander, meander, dawdle—all signs of good Be Here Now living.

Cameroonians can Be Here Now like nobody’s business. I was fascinated, enraptured, dumbfounded by how they made every moment so full. A simple trip from one town to the next, just a few miles down the road, could end up taking days. You meet so-and-so who knows you from so-and-so and whose relative just died and you end up going to a funeral; you go to the art vendor to get a souvenir and you end up invited to a family meal; your taxi gets stuck in mud and you end up in a roadside bar with 10 new friends to drink with.

I could go on and on with these spontaneous adventures that made up hours upon hours of meaningful moments in Cameroon. How did they do it? I wanted to know so badly that I ended up marrying a Cameroonian. OK maybe it wasn’t that cut and dried. Or maybe it was. Africans seemed enlightened to me, like Buddhists or otherworld beings. The tasks of life did get done eventually, one way or another, who cared, those things weren’t what really mattered. In Cameroon anyway.

Being married to that Cameroonian in the United States of Go Go Go was a whole nother story. It is hard to Be Here Now when everyone else is up there ahead of you. And so I continue to practice and find ways to Be Here Now. And one of the best ways I’ve found is to take trips, travel, vacation, even staycation. The conundrum now is this: I am an adult trying to Be Here Now, seeking the moment. But I have children who live in the moment masterfully—no practice or effort needed. I am their parent who has to teach them rules, routines, and consequences—those very rules, routines, and consequences that keep us out of the moment. Travel is my way to get in the moment where they already are. How do we travel together? Do I get to stop parenting? No rules, routines, consequences? How free for me. How free for them. Would it work?

My next post will tell a tale of traveling to Europe with my children (who by the way are half Cameroonian and therefore have double Be Here Now powers—from being children and African).