And now a year has passed and that month is memory, residing in a book on my shelf and the occasional word of a supportive friend. Of course I am changed by the experience; I created myself through my writing, building an identity and a question and a thirst for knowing more. It is true that we cannot live perpetually in this heightened state; no matter how much we may wish to drink of that cup it passes from us. We find ourselves returning to a rhythm of ordinary concerns, pleasures and comforts. And thus we ask ourselves how it is that so much time can have passed without our noticing. Because we cannot live every day fully charged as though it were the only day on earth.
At least, I thought not. What have I learned in a year? I have learned to be deeply grateful and filled with awe for the gift of that once-in-a-lifetime experience. I have learned that I have the power to create many more. Still others will befall me all unlooked-for. And I have also learned that there is no arrival, no grand achievement. That adventure now sits quietly and unassumingly on my shelf, neatly tucked away, and the morning that opens before me now calls my name. It is issuing me with a challenge of its own. I had thought that the writing was the gift but it was not true. Words are merely a portal and a lens: the real adventure takes place in every silent or noise-filled moment. None of them may be captured or held, only lived. And with the living, an opening up to change.
One year on I go about my every day life filled with every day cares, with no time to indulge in a frenzy of questioning exploration and desire. And I cannot live a lifetime based on memory. But it is in my gift to welcome each and every moment and to know that no one moment is more blessed than another. I cannot capture time nor remain forever at the crest of discovery and superlative joy. But I have this moment. And in the end, it is the only one that matters.