Frames Around Moments

Reflections

It's the fourth week or so of my leave. I say "or so" because I have lost track of time. Time is no longer this quantitative thing that has its demands and divides my life into certain slots. Time has slowly become a fluid material that only has meaning as a quality - I have only a very vague idea of what date or day of the week it is at any given moment. It's as fundamental a change as any. Because even when I have my usual holidays - some 2-3 weeks - time still remains a quantity. I try to count and divide my free time, thinking of how many things I am able to get done, how many places or friends I am able to visit. But now, I perceive time differently. I no longer calculate. Time just flows.

It didn't happen overnight, of course. The beginning of June saw me sitting quietly and doing my school work, attending some Seminary's events, winding down very gradually. But I remember clearly the first moment I was able to enjoy for itself, just being present. It was a Saturday afternoon and we were cruising with K. in his old Buick to have dinner at auntie R.'s place, the windows were rolled down and Baba Yetu was on repeat, and this inexplicable joy took over, and I thought, "This! This moment. Remember it. All is good."

Last week, I read Frederick Buechner's book The Remarkable Ordinary - I never get tired of his writing - where he talks about noticing life, its moments, its music, its whisper. And he says that when we are truly present and experience life in all its fullness, it's as if we put a frame around a moment, making it a piece of art. And only then do we see an ordinary and fleeting moment as it really is with all its potential and beauty. I liked that idea - putting frames around moments. And I realised this is exactly what had happened in that car on my way to the dinner. A frame was put around it. And I haven't forgotten that moment since.

There are more of those moments, more of those frames from the past weeks, and I'm just walking around without hurry, collecting them. Sitting in a sauna with my cousin and his family, looking at sunset from their little sauna window. Birdwatching with my dad in a moor. Sitting in a shady garden with a book. Staying up too late with my friends on Midsummer Eve. Visiting A. and L. for the first time after the lockdown. Picking fresh sun-warm strawberries. Going to the first concert since March and sitting there with my smile never ending. Being a tourist in my own neighborhood and enjoying Old Town cafes with H. and K. and P. Such ordinary things, and yet... frames around all of them.

I visited my first violin teacher last week. She is a spirited and tough woman who has gone through some very difficult times. She lost her husband to depression about a year ago, and has had to build up her life all over again. So we talked about our lives, and I told her about my leave of absence, kind of timidly, as the whole thing still has an air of failure to it. But she listened very quietly and when I left in the evening, she told me she thought I was inspirational and that she ought to find the strength to take a leave, too, and live in Italy for a year. It was a bitter-sweet moment. I don't think about myself as particularly inspirational when it comes my long leave, more like desperational. And yet, here I am - not knowing what day it is, and not caring either. Collecting moments like an old-school art dealer. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

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As to my cultural wanderings, I watched BBC mini-series Jane Eyre a little while ago (the 2006 version with Ruth Wilson who is a wonder to behold, and Toby Stephens who would beat any Mr Darcy, hands down). So I've dived into Victorian lit, having just finished Wuthering Heights and am half way through Jane Eyre now. If I touched another Victorian novel, I would return from my wanderings with a floor-length skirt and fashionably hysterical mind.