moments of a life

I attended a marriage ceremony today, a simple function that I enjoyed attending after a long time – usually our kind of marriages (in Kerala) are just show pieces that are meaningless (or today I made up some meaning from it). For example, I watched the groom take blessings from an elder in the family. His father had made it a point to break off the groom from the procession which was taking him to the mandap, take blessing from this person and proceed. I thought he genuinely touched the person’s feet, asked for blessings and received it. It was someone with a head full of clean white hair, who knew him probably as an just born infant to a man that is standing before him, entering a new life. For some reason, hairs on my arm stood up.

I was thinking if people realize that such moments, of taking or giving the blessings before you start a huge leap in your life, tying the knot, are once in a lifetime which makes it big moments. How do we get them imprinted in our memories – being fully present, realizing the “power of now”, mental images with the intensity of feelings that we felt at that time – than the still photos. I used to think about this when I say final farewell to friends who move away – often they don’t realize this may be the last time we see each other for years and when we see each other after those years, we may not be exactly be the same. So the last time we see each other with such a closeness that we mutually feel is now. From that point, the relationship fades into a maybe a nostalgic one which we both hope is the same as the one we really had at one time. Hence the final farewell is a significant moment for me, but I usually see both of us just saying we will keep in touch and walk away. Same is the case about moments with my daughter. I may never feel her innocence just the same, or her joy of simple things, or silly jokes, or non-sensical questions in the same way later. I hope to being more present in the moment, with full attention, enjoy and cherish such moments.