September 9, 2009

The Present.

We are walking down the street, holding hands. There's a playground at the end of the block and I run to the swings and climb on, and Henry takes the one next to me, facing the opposite direction, and we swing higher and higher, passing each other, sometimes in sync and sometimes streaming past each other so fast it seems like we're going to collide, and we laugh, and laugh, and nothing can ever be sad, no one can be lost, or dead, or far away: right now we are here, and nothing can mar our perfection, or steal the joy of this perfect moment.
-- The Time Traveler's Wife, p.240

I like this sentence. I like how it captures the essence of a perfect moment and what the present is. No thought of the past, no thought of the future. Just now.

Isn't it funny how two people can cross paths constantly in life, but the timing may never be right? It's almost like there is a constant molding of the two people until they fit each other. Even then, when they are together, they will always be changing and affected by one another. Except now, they are doing it together. Makes me wonder-- when? who? why? For their upmost good.

[I also noted how long the sentence is. All commas. And now, there is a sense of freedom in breaking all the grammar rules we learned in grade school. Incomplete sentences, too many commas, repetitive beginnings. Despite all that, the thing that binds the whole thing together is the idea. It's the idea of what a perfect moment is like.]

I read this over the kitchen sink as I ate a piece of toast. Peanut butter drizzled with honey, to be exact. Why over the kitchen sink? Because I simply could not put the book down. Flashback! This is exactly what I did in elementary and middle school because I could not bear to put the book down. I am altogether glad that I can still enjoy the things I enjoyed in the past. Reminds me that inside, there's still something that's the same. Or that I take reading to the extreme.


To the here and now.
Cheerio.

1 comment:

Kris Lee said...

ah, quoting from time traveler's wife...a woman after my own heart.