Let's just appreciate the now
/The Boston Globe
Beverly Beckham
Doom and Gloom. Like Eeyore, the sad-sack donkey, the news seems to spread woe all around - in the car, on the television, at the doorstep. It bends and distorts. It turns us around, too, yanking even spring's new green rug, soft and lovely, right out from under us.
"A fine day today, folks. Definitely spring. Sunshine and in the upper 60s. But it's not going to last. Tomorrow there's a cold front coming and rain, more rain, so get those umbrellas ready." That's what someone on the radio said eight days ago when the sun was shining and the air was as soft as breath.
"Yup, and don't put away those winter sweaters yet, either" another someone piped in. And then it was all about tomorrow, how rotten it was going to be and how rotten this spring has been and how we deserve better.
Never mind that better was right outside the window, waiting, whistling, the birds up to their old tricks, cawing and chirping, the sun shining, hyacinth posing, daffodils dancing, the temperature rising.
But I was mentally past it and on to tomorrow, to rain and cold and more gloom. "Too bad all this sunshine isn't going to last," I said all day.
"It's been a bad spring," everyone agreed.
"Yes, it has."
And that was that.
Radio, TV, newspapers, news magazines, the Net, they all moan and groan not about what is, but about what may be tomorrow.
"Recession is here. Slump may be worst since WWII."
"Drinking may raise breast cancer risk!"
"Delta & Northwest merge - passengers could find higher costs, fewer options, experts predict."
"Major quake a sure bet. See when big one could hit."
"France may outlaw inciting thinness."
Headlines from a single day.
"May" and "could" and "sure bet" and "experts predict" are more common in today's world than the very common verb "to be" in all its many forms. And every one of these "mays" and "coulds" and "sure bets" and "experts predict" brings us down and gets us crazy because they take us out of the now and set us in some lesser tomorrow.
This may not be the worst recession since WWII. Drinking may not raise breast cancer risk. Delta and Northwest may offer more, not fewer, options. Because the word may is conjecture, all supposition. And as if there's not enough in our own backyard, news services are actually importing "mays" from abroad. France may outlaw inciting thinness? Raise your hand if you remotely care.
On April 10, this story appeared in the newspaper Florida Today. "Hurricane forecast intensifies: Check your window shutters and bottled-water stockpile: Forecasters expect a `very active' Atlantic hurricane season."
Hurricane season doesn't begin until June 1. Why print this warning in April? What's the point? When did we become a nation so pathologically worried about the future, not the future of the world or of our nation or of our souls - these things should give us pause - but the future of gas prices and storms and airlines?
Self-help books have been flying off bookstore shelves for decades now. "Stop Whining and Start Living." "Become a Better You." "The Power of Now." These are the newest of the crop, bestsellers, which millions of Americans have bought and read and sworn to follow.
But their shared theme, to live in the present and to appreciate the now, isn't something we do.
Now it is sunny and warm and getting warmer. Now the dogwoods are in bloom and the forsythia are yellow and the thick green sprouts of things planted last year are growing fast like bean stalks, getting taller and sturdier every day.
Now the rabbits are back, munching on these things. Now it is not hurricane season, the recession is not the worst since WWII, we are not living on a fault line in California, and the glass of wine we just poured has not yet been deemed a carcinogen.
It's April. It's spring. Tomorrow isn't here yet, so why not just enjoy today?
