Can’t absorb the moments rushing

MAXINE COHEN

I was gaining five pounds and enjoying every bite of it at Peet’s

Coffee in the Bristol Farms shopping center.

If you love coffee as I do -- caffeinated, no sugar, no cream --

then Peet’s is the only place to go. It’ll truly put hair on your

chest. Now, that’s a lovely visual.

I took a seat at one of the tables outside around the fountain and

noticed a new addition to the landscape. A duck has made it her home.

I know it’s a “she” because the salesperson from the Brighton store

came out to feed it and called her by name, Samantha. And Samantha

was putting on quite a show. She squiggled this way and that,

corkscrewed her long neck back under the feathers on top of her body,

wagged her tail feathers, puffed out her chest and flapped her wings

to dry herself. I marveled at the fluid beauty of her movements and

the exquisite choreography of her dance.

I gazed, entranced. Time stood still. Nothing else mattered. I was

full of duck and filled with delight. She was a work of art.

And then she up and flew away.

I sighed. I finished my coffee and my fruit and nut triangle.

OK. Time to focus again. But what a lovely little timeout.

I got into my car to leave, driving slowly, and passed WaterWorks

on the way out. There in the window, in huge red letters printed on a

white beach towel, was “SALE.” WaterWorks was having a sale? What?

Maybe I didn’t read it right. Isn’t that a contradiction of terms?

I looked at my watch. I hadn’t left a lot of leeway, but I figured

if I moved fast, I’d have just enough time to check it out and still

make it back to the office on time. I zoomed into a parking space and

hopped out of the car. Sure enough, it was a sale. Well, sort of.

They didn’t have much marked down, but they did have the very

thing that I wanted and in exactly the right color. How lucky is

that. I bought it on the spot.

I gave the sales person cash.

“I read somewhere that cash is going to be obsolete soon,” she

said.

“How can that be?” one of the other sales people said.

“Seems to me, if anything is going to be obsolete, it’s going to

be checks,” I said. So here I am, sitting at the computer, writing

this column, and these two things, which felt so dissimilar at the

time they happened, even though they occurred one right after the

other, are coming up together, clamoring to be heard -- together.

What’s the connection?

Maybe the connection is the dichotomy of the two. And the

difference in the experience of living that each engenders.

I threw out the first version, the WaterWorks version, of this

column because I wrote it from my head, from my intellect, from what

I know, which isn’t what this particular column felt like it was

about.

I then wrote it again, this, the duck version, from the experience

of flow. Of tuning in to my body and heart and listening so that I

could hear where it wanted to go and what felt right. Just slowing

down and taking the time and listening to myself so that I could

know.

Because that’s where the connection comes from, doesn’t it? Not in

the rushing around, doing still more, ever faster. But in the quiet

and stillness in between. And isn’t that what we all say we want. Ask

any one of us. We all want a good relationship -- with our child, our

partner, our parent, our friend. We want to feel loved and be loving.

We want to feel connected to someone, to something bigger than

ourselves.

And we get a choice in life. We can have both. We can have the

duck, and we can move fast too. But not if the latter serves as a

substitute for and a defense against the former.

If we impose from the outside, one activity after another, as a

way of filling time -- not wasting time, accomplishing a lot, feeling

productive, feeling worthy, having still more, being seen by others

as important or competent -- then we will not be available for the

experience of flow. Constant activity is a defense against the

thoughts and feelings that lay beneath it and drive it, feelings such

as loneliness, anxiety, guilt, sadness and fear, which are too

uncomfortable to feel. If you move fast enough, you can’t feel a

thing.

And if it’s too scary to feel, then you aren’t available for the

experience of flow. You’re going to walk by the pond in the Peet’s

courtyard, see the duck, perhaps wonder for a moment what it’s doing

there or how it got there, and keep right on going. After all,

there’s no time to waste. There are a million things to get done,

most of which will get you nowhere.

* MAXINE COHEN is a Corona del Mar resident and marriage and

family therapist practicing in Newport Beach.