August 6, 2014

Stretching the Moment

When I was a child, August was one of my favorite months – those days of complete relaxation defined the meaning of summer. Camps were over, summer jobs ending, often there was a family road-trip vacation, and if not, simply day after day of complete freedom.

In Chicago, August was always hot and September and school far away.

Being a Mom in this new millennium, with back-to-school forms due, high school sports practices starting well ahead of classes, and the annual trek to take my son back to his college on the East Coast, the beginning of August marks the end of summer relaxation, and my attachment to that childhood memory creates a sense of disappointment when this calendar change delivers something different.

Buddhists would say that my devotion to this childhood memory of August is where the suffering begins. It is not that I consider August as a parent to involve suffering in any meaningful way (and it clearly does not) – it is the type of disappointment that you experience when you move from the pleasure of beginning to eat an ice cream cone to the awareness that in a few minutes the ice cream will be gone and the pleasure over. Buddhism says that everything is impermanent, so there will constantly be disappointment at the end of every happiness, if your expectations don’t allow for it to end.

Pema Chodron’s book “Living Beautifully: with Uncertainty and Change” is helping me understand my issue with August. She writes that in the impermanence of life there is also the wonderful possibility of making each moment count. That instead of feeling disappointment that something you are savoring will end, you can take a moment to switch your perspective and feel joyful for what you are experiencing.

Pema suggests that you can increase your ability to do that by practicing simple, mindful exercises throughout the day, such as focusing during a walk on the beach on really experiencing the feeling of the sand beneath your feet, or taking a break during your morning run to spend time watching the dragonflies dart through the summer sky. She says that each time we stretch a moment in this way, the feeling of disappointment at the end of that moment will become less stressful.

With the coming end of summer in mind, Jane has created recipes that will give you such ease in the kitchen this month that you’ll have time to enjoy many such moments during August – be sure to stretch them.

Author’s note

For the past decade, I have made a commitment to embark on a unique discovery each summer. It could be an interesting place to travel, learning to cook something unusual or taking an “out of the box” class. This summer was exceptional as I worked on creating our online spice shop, took two croquet classes (not just your backyard croquet – this required an entirely white croquet outfit) and devoted a good bit of July to studying Buddhism along with a series of Tuesday afternoon classes called “Six Big Buddhist Ideas” with Carl Jerome. Steve (my husband) joined me on this last adventure and, as you can imagine, Carl’s insightful class has provoked a lot of interesting conversations.

Zen Moment

“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”

– Dr. Seuss