This Moment Cannot Be Replicated
What's uuuuuuppppp friends?
So, as you know, I’ve been noticing my “horizon thinking” for many many years now. I remember when I started noticing it, rather when I started noticing that life could be a different way. It completely shattered my world as I knew it. In a Toy Daggers song called “Always”, there was even a line that went: “Always running down to the horizon and never catching up to the sun”. Okay so I may have just watched the YouTube video and caught some feelings for the me then who wrote and sang those words. Oh 2015 or 2016 Kat, I really feel for you right now. I remember being in a therapy group for the first time at a hospital here in Toronto in a program that was for women who had experienced trauma. I remember shaking the entire time for like nearly all the sessions for however many months it was. It was the first time I had been in a situation that I had admitted it - well I guess I didn’t have to really admit it, that didn’t come until much later, but being in that program was like me saying “yep, this happened to me”. It was scary but also I started to learn what living my truth felt like, and it was very empowering and kinda a relief, even if I didn’t see it at the time. It was during that group that I also discovered what “dissociation” was for the first time. In the same song I remember writing about it during the lyrics: “I can hide behind the window and I can watch the world walking by, I can shut my eyes and stay low, where nobody can get me from the outside.”
*To check out the lyric video for “Always” you can go to: https://youtu.be/HQNLhBGaEpE
Annnnyyywayyyy…went off there for a bit but hey what can you do. It all has to do with the topic I wanted to write about today which is…da-da-da daaaaahhhhh…
This moment can never be replicated.
Yep, take that shit in. This moment can never be replicated.
K, one more time with feeling.
This moment can never be replicated.
In meditation today that hit me like a pie to the face. Just a “splat” and I was like…ohhhhh shit.
It made me take a deep breath and I felt my heart soften and that gentle ego-dying-laughter I’ve come to know in the last little while started playing inside my body. And then I settled in. And began to see what I always knew - everything is okay in this moment. Who I am is exactly right, what I’m doing is exactly right, what I’m wearing, how I look, what the state of my apartment is, what I weigh, what and how I’m eating, how many Instagram followers I have, what the weather is like, the state of my toenails. It really is all alright. And, that whole idea that who I am and what is going on right now can never be replicated was a gentle reminder to really savour it.
Another thing I have trouble with is letting go. If I have something really good I focus more on "omg it’s going to leave" or "I need to figure out how to keep it". Another breakthrough today was that if I really really savour whatever it is, the moment, now, me, here, it does make it easier to let go. It’s because I was always into the next thing and not fully loving or not fully being present with the thing now that I found it stressful and a struggle to let go of. I realized that I was hesitant to love the now because I'd be too sad and miss it too much when it left. I see now that that’s not true, because the next moment will just bring me something new to love. Each breath is a birth and a death, an inhale and an exhale. It’s a cycle. I'm learning to be comfortable with all the parts of it so that I can really be present in my life.
In music, I notice time and time again that if someone makes a mistake or does something “wrong” in a song, they immediately start over or for the rest of the song they mess up simply because their mind is back in bar 2 or in the first verse or whatever where they didn’t properly enunciate the word “you”, or they hit the crack in-between two piano keys. My whole mentality has always been if I make a mistake in performance, just keep going! Chances are, no one even heard, chances are, no one notices or cares, and the beauty of live music is that we’re already into the next thing. AND music demands true presence so if you’re not in with it, it doesn’t work. Again, it’s easy for me with music to let go and to not attach and to just be with what is and go with it and all that good stuff. I really appreciate every moment fully, savour it, play with it, enjoy the fuck out of it when I’m in a song or playing or performing. I know it won’t ever happen again, I sing each time like it’s the last time I’ll get to sing. I bring my full self to it, my attention, my soul, my heart, my energy. What if I lived like this too? Each moment? If I can do it with music, why not with other areas? Anyway. Stuff for me to chew on.
If you can relate to this - horizon thinking, difficulty accepting what is, being in the moment, with music or not with music, I’d love to hear from you. Sending you all the love.
xxKat
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