It doesn’t happen often, but every once in a while we all experience moments of perfect calm. Today, I had one such moment. There is a piano piece that I’ve been playing with and rewriting, but very rarely do I play it through perfectly, with all the right notes, good tempo, and feeling. After a few false starts and one rushed play through, I took a moment to breathe. I just sat there with my eyes closed and let my mind wander. To play a piece well, you need some sort of inspiration or memory that fits the mood of the piece, and this particular song is melancholy yet hopeful. After a minute or so, I focused my thoughts of a flame that had great potential but never came to anything. While thinking of him, my mind lost itself in memories of his voice, his face, his laugh, his smile… Without so much as a thought to the notes or tempo, my fingers played the piece better than I’ve ever played before. In that moment, I let go of every thought, every emotion, every stressful situation in my life and just thought of him. These moments of peace don’t need to rely on a paramour: it can be a memory of being on a boat, or on top of a mountain, or a family member or friend. In these memories, we let go of all of the things holding us back and just live within the moment. There is no future, there is no past, there is only the memory of the joy and peace you felt. Life is cluttered and messy; it is difficulty and unexplainable. However, in something as simple as remembrance, we can make the clutter disappear leaving us perfectly content.
