LUIS DANCING AT OUR WEDDING “Do what you love,” my friend Luis advised me, “and you will stop time.”
I imagine myself swimming at a spring in Florida, where the manatees gather for warmth once winter begins. It is here that these marine mammals roll over on their backs to let humans rub their stomachs.
STOPPING TIME.
Luis died one week ago…the ultimate time stopper—DEATH. Yet what Luis had meant about STOPPING TIME was something profound. STOPPING TIME meant LIVING in the INFINITY of the present moment. Luis excelled at LIVING. When I met him, he was a frequent dancer of everything: merengue, salsa, swing. He soon took to skydiving. Then he learned to fly airplanes. Next, he became an avid golfer. From that he dove into martial arts. Most recently, he had been getting immersed in the world of photography. All along, he was a talented musician playing both the keyboard and guitar.
“DO WHAT YOU LOVE,” Luis said, and he lived his advice, engaging others with him in a Tom Sawyer like fashion. What will everyone do without Luis?
I imagine myself a FLYING FISH thrilling in both water and air, BEING IN THE MOMENT OF MOVEMENT. It was Luis who got me MOVING almost 12 years ago. I was 40, and my long term Russian boyfriend had disappeared into another relationship. I was unmarried and childless, fretting about my biological clock ticking away furiously.
“DO WHAT YOU LOVE and YOU WILL STOP TIME,” Luis had said. I followed Luis’ advice. I joined the Atlanta Bicycle Campaign to pursue my interest in conservation and physical health. I started attending the Unitarian Church to seek answers about the GREAT MYSTERY. I signed up with the Jungian Society to deepen my understanding of archetypes. Every weekend, I collected friends to soirée at art exhibits. I broke up the status quo of my life and made new friends. These friends intersected with other friends. TIME PAUSED for me. I was purely involved in MY OWN LIFE. Then I found my Chiboogamoo, my precious, precious husband.
HALLELUJAH WITH HER BELOVED CHIBOOGAMOO
Thank you Luis, for the way you connected with me and gave me what I needed. You HEARD me, and you shared with me what you knew about LIFE.
THE GREAT MYSTERY: LIFE ENDS SUDDENLY regardless of our intention. We need to make sure we LIVE our lives NOW. We are simultaneously fragile and resilient. TAKE TIME to DO WHAT YOU LOVE.
Hallelujah invites you to tell her what is that stops time for you. SOUL BLOG now.
We enter the GREAT MYSTERY.
Time stops for me in a grove of pines overlooking Sacandaga Lake. Time stops for the smell of honeysuckle or orange blossom on a spring night breeze. Time stops for poetry, and well-written history, and any story, big or small, that reveals something authentic about its teller. Time stops for a great conversation with friends over a glass or several of wine. Time stops in al-Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem and in the Rodopi Mountains outside a monastery baking fresh bread. Time stops when my niece skips an acorn across the wet road and then squeezes my hand in excitement when it gets squished under a tire. There are so many times it stops, when I consider them, I must be very young. Love, Marianne
ReplyDeleteDearest Marianne, welcome to coffee with Hallelujah. Your words of poetry bring shivers to my shoulder blades! For I experienced a quickening and then complete stoppage of time through them. YOU move me places in the real world but take me deeper into the reality of their BEING. You have experienced LOVE. The LOVE of DOING and BEING--indeed you must be very very young!
ReplyDeleteHallelujah thanks you for visiting her with your coffee! Please return.