Living in the present moment--
where else would there be to live?

For here is all living, breathing reality--
all there is.

All happiness, sadness,
fear and love,
all boredom and buddingness,
past and present
(with the future running up, too,
to take its place)--
right here,
right now,
in this living, breathing moment.

Life is not
for most of us
most of the time
making that one great decision that will change
the course of history.

It is, rather,
the countless little, sometimes almost not quite perceptible
decisions
to do this
or that
differently,
maybe even just a little differently.

And these decisions
these changes
have this way
of evolving
and exploding sometimes
and snowballing
and taking on lives of their own
leading our whole parade
down a whole different way
until-- who knows?--
we emerge
changed
by the whole experience,
different:
a new man or woman,
waiting there
sometimes patiently,
sometimes not,
to be born.

jbs
11/12/98