Moments

Another archived post that just didn’t feel quite ‘right’ being put out there when I wrote it. Some moments take place in what feel like clusters. Sometimes, like now, we go so long without anything really standing out. Remembering the things that have the power to make us feel most alive is so important in this world of uncertainty that has brought so many of us unwanted quiescence.

More Than a Place

On February 18th, in the middle of my art class, I was having a conversation about not having favourites of things. As an example, I was asked if I had a favourite place I’ve visited during any of my traveling. I realized that I don’t quantify the ‘best’ by places but by moments. I can finally note a few things as best moments of my life and though I don’t have a comprehensive, well-thought-out, perfect list, I’ve got an idea.

I tried to make seeing the towers of Torres del Paine a ‘moment’, to brand it one of my top experiences. It should have been. After the hardest hike I’ve personally done, rivaled only by hiking Table Mountain in the middle of the night with 3 other girls alone, I expected that I would feel that thing. The one that makes me immediately know that I will think of that exact moment in time as one of the peaks of my life.

It’s been a couple weeks now, 21 days to be exact, and I just took it off of my list. It didn’t feel right sitting there among the others. My list still isn’t comprehensive, but I decided to write the big ones down. Not because I worry that they will lose significance or that I will forget the way they made me feel, but to see how they all line up against one another. The combination of times that have struck me as particularly incredible representations of this life feels so much grander than the small black font in the notes app looking up at me from this expensive LCD screen that holds so much of my ‘life’ in it’s grasp. 

Not Every Beautiful Experience Changes Your World

That moment in Patagonia was spectacular- an accomplishment, breathtaking, absolutely one of my best experiences but it just wasn’t a ‘moment’. Somehow it didn’t strike me, even as I turned back multiple times to get ‘one last glimpse’ of the towers and then as I walked forward and stared in awe at the snow capped mountains, even as I was drawn to take everything in time and time again because it felt like I couldn’t possibly process the greatness of the place in which I stood, not even then in the moment itself did I think of it as ‘a moment’. 

This might not make much sense, but how does one explain such a fundamental feeling of awe. Such a compelling sense of oneness with this world, greater than any certainty I’ve ever had. I tried later on that day, even on the hike down, to pinpoint even a minute that could have been considered this big important thing but I knew at the time that it wasn’t it. That doesn’t mean that that place in that time wasn’t one of the best, but it didn’t have that earth-shattering, change what you feel about the world for a second, kind of quality. I so desperately wish it had. 

We Don’t Choose What We Hold Most Dear

That goes to show that for whatever reason we do not get to pick, not truly, the things that we hold dearest to us. People fall into your life at moments that you least expect. Things take turns and life happens and the rollercoaster you didn’t even realize you were on takes a sudden loop and then it curves some more before getting you where you thought you were going. The path of this life is surprising, at every corner. It challenges us and it pushes us to find ‘moments’ wherever we can. But we never get to pick when these things hit us, they just do- hard, in the face, with so much power that it could knock you off the back of a motorcycle in the mountains or directly out of a car underneath a sky full of stars laid thicker than you’ve ever seen. 

I don’t want to start putting too much stock into these flickers of significance because, truthfully speaking, not every incredible experience or beautiful place or huge accomplishment will make it on to the ‘top moments of my life’ at the end of it all. That’s how it’s supposed to be. These things stand out for one reason or another and it is not always up to us to question why or to try to fit other moments among THE moments. 

So here I am, searching for more moments in more places with more people to find more joy in a world full of more adventure than I’ll ever be able to grasp.

That being said, here is my list for now: 

Driving under the stars on the way back to the ship after a sunset safari in South Africa

Floating in Halong Bay under the stars talking about what on earth we would do after it ended

Hiking on the Great Wall of China after learning about it in every history class as a kid

Ice skating in Kobe listening to Christmas music with all of my closest friends

Driving back from Doolin, Ireland under the stars and getting out in the freezing cold to stare

Sitting on the back of a motorcycle as the sun set in the middle of the Andes mountains

Spending hours on the dock in Huerquehue National Park surrounded by the lake and trees