i was present with the past

“Trust in your deepest strength of all: to be present, to be wakeful.” Jon Kabat-Zinn

Every moment seems to slip through my fingers. My mind wanders, entangled in the allure of past regrets or the promises of an uncertain future. I often find myself ensnared in the webs of the ever-churning landscape of my creation.

The ceaseless hum of notifications, the call of deadlines, and the perpetual scroll through digital timelines conspire to pull me away from now. And as I navigate this maze, the struggle for presence gets pushed to the margins.

In college, I worked for a non-profit in New Orleans that provided local filmmakers with the needed equipment and funding to bring their visions to life. And since they’ve been assisting artists since the early 1970s, they’ve amassed a sizable tape and reel collection.

Enter me.

I have an odd skillset. I am good at digitizing film. It’s a lengthy and, at times, frenetic process, one that requires complete focus. And when provided with the right utensils I can successfully foster the transfer from dusty film to durable digital file.

The other day, in a moment of self-dissection, I realized that nothing has held me in the present quite like the hours that I spent in the company of artists I’d never met and tape players decades my senior.

My focused eyes watched tapes play in their entirety, always looking out for glitches or fuzzy lines running through the picture. I donned noise-cancelling headphones, making sure that each second of audio transferred clearly. I spent nerve-racking hours on the floor, glasses resting on the tip of my nose, with an ornery Betamax player, Q-tips, and rubbing alcohol (always 99%), hoping that if I cleaned the gears just right, it would spit out its latest victim. With time and patience, it always did.

I never checked my texts, or emails, much less social media. It was me and the work. No distractions. The world would fall away until there was only the doing. My hands moved with precision and intent, absorbed in the motions of creation and skill.

My body and mind melded into a state of total presence.

My naive self didn’t know then that I was meditating. But I was. I experienced Samadhi. Full release. Liberation.

I’m looking back now with such gratitude, for it provided an escape and a needed anchoring during a difficult period — a respite from my mind. The complete absorption, allowed me to find flow amidst sickness and feel free. There, I never thought about my body, my weight, my disorder.

I was subservient to the machines — to a process and a project larger than myself — it was a sanctuary where distractions faded and I thrived.

And I’m longing for that again.

For a space that can withstand all of me. Where I’m forced to move beyond the frenzy and focus on the smallness in front of me. Because that’s all any of this is anyway — small, ordinary moments.

For it is where I am that I must find meaning.

My attention stays fractured. Shall I look here? Or here? I fear missing out, so I look everywhere. Retaining nothing and remaining achingly depleted. Last night, I started watching the new season of True Detective and practically threw my phone across the room. I COULD NOT STOP LOOKING AT IT. And Jodie Foster deserves full concentration.

This morning, I’m melancholic and yearning for the haven that New Orleans —the vibrant Bywater community — and those artists were for me.

I miss that feeling of emerging spent but satisfied with the tangible evidence of my thoughtfulness laid out before me. There was a joy to being so fully invested in each moment. My mind, body, and spirit worked in harmony to achieve a state of complete engagement.

For those hours when time seemed to stand still, I felt most alive, most actualized. My purpose was crystal clear.

It is a rare experience for me to be so focused now.

But the memory of that feeling still energizes me. It's something that I wish for everyone — to be absolutely aware, not distracted by the past or future, but engrossed in the essential act of creation. While I may not have those same tasks today, I am determined to bring that level of presence into everything I do. For it is presence itself that imbues work, any work, with meaning, with soul.

I am starting to understand that it is a conscious choice to disentangle from distraction, to resist the seductive whispers of an ever-urgent elsewhere. That mindfulness can become a lantern that guides me, illuminating the path to where the present moment awaits, patient and unyielding. And there, profound richness is hidden within its folds, urging me to set aside the burdens of yesterday and the worries of tomorrow. It is a call to attention, an invitation to revel in the simplicity of existence.

I’m trying…

To breathe in the essence of now, and let the distractions fade.

To feel the pulse of every moment, and be swayed.

To be present in this dance as it is the greatest gift I may receive.