I have had some time to reflect on Dima's death over a month ago, and what it is starting to mean for me.
I'm coming to realize how undervalued the physicality of life is--at least for me. Or maybe undervalued isn't the right word, but how overlooked it is. But when someone passes, it is the physical moments one misses--the sounds, the smells, the touches and presence of someone. The feel of that someone. And memories are a collection of these tangible moments; they are what the body craves in the absence of that which is lost.
Much of my 30s so far I've lived in my head. Troubleshooting issues at work with software, scheming how to encourage organizational change, obsessing over the slights of coworkers. And all along, life is going on.
What brings me happiness is the dog hanging out in the backyard or my husband cooking me his "breakfast extravaganza" on a sleepy Saturday morning. It is dinner with friends, a delicious cup of coffee, a seriously good laugh. And though I've been a participant to these in the past couple of years, I haven't savored them, or lived them, really. Rushed and trying to survive work--I'm finding it all so empty when I stop and pay attention.
This moment is all I have, and why not look for the good in it, or at least live it with a sense of awareness and appreciation for what it is?
I think of Dimitri in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, a self-proclaimed Sensualist. And I think of his brother Ivan, who spent so much time wrestling with life in his mind. I used to resonate with Ivan and his rationalism, but as I grow older, I wonder if Dimitri was on to something.
Much better to go out and touch the world, to feel it on your skin and take in all of its noises and smells, its views . . . . It is, quite literally, the stuff of memories.
