Expectations

My Dog "Kai" seems always to have a wonderful countenance combination of expectation and presentmomentness. I expect that "presentmomentness" is not a word, but I think it should be. And not a hyphenated word. I mean a real,new word.

When my Dad worked in the aerospace industry as a writer in the 60's he had to write all sorts of articles about things that were just being developed. Often, he would need a word for something for which a word had not been developed. When you look up "fluidics" in a dictionary, you are looking up one of his words - the study of how fluids work and move - since at the time, they were studying that in space. Every time I see my lava lamp (I LOVE my lava lamp!)I think of my dad - partly because of his word and partly because he would find it funny that I have a lava lamp in 2010 as a mid-lifer (at least I hope I am a mid-lifer - one never knows).

Kai's presentmomentness is particularly pronounced when seen up against this painting of a Thai monk. The ability to be peaceful and present and yet at the same hopeful and expectant is a wonderful thing. Some people live only in the expectation of the next thing, thereby missing the present moment. Others are so mired in the present, good or bad, that imagining the hope of the future evades them. But to live in between them is like the rubber band between the balsa wood toy plane body and the propeller. The energy propels. Sometimes into the blue sky and sometimes into a wall! But to fly at all is such a joy!

It seems that the art of living is to find that balance between appreciating the simple pleasures of the moment and risking to wonder what could be that is not. As I look at my friendships, everyone of them exists and is fed by that hope of becoming rather than just the confinement of possession. And when the hope for becoming is gone and the bar has been so lowered on hope that it rests on the ground, it needs to be lovingly and firmly set aside so that presence and hope flourishes in those friendships which give us life.