In fact, life is not as hard as we allude to in text form or around attentive audiences. Perceived strife is empathy, and I get why we are normalized to do it. Tension builds an audience and it captivates people. Some people cannot even have a simple conversation without some sort of labored monologue. This is how cable news networks overwhelmingly succeed and the Hallmark Channel is buried somewhere deep in the lower 300s of your dial. Also, this is why women have -- and keep -- crazy friends. Its both entertaining and therapeutic for everybody.
But life slows down if you allow it. It will let you pause and have a lengthy look around the place. Life is very spectacular most of the time, it really is. It is when you begin living for moments -- and recognizing when you are actually in one, that things start to really get good.
Living in a moment is the primary canon to life; becoming fully cognizant as if in a wonderful dream, infallible for the next minute-and-a-half before alert consciousness takes you over. It is what separates us from lesser intelligent species, recognizing that fleeting moments don't return, programming ourselves to capture them internally.
We remember seemingly inconsequential moments because somehow they've impacted us so profoundly, but like a janitorial keyring, you have to remember what emotion they unlock -- pride, love, comfort, exhilaration. I still remember what it was like to be proud of myself for a shitty Honorable Mention in kindergarten. Its very possible that the motivation to succeed could have stemmed from that. I remember what it was like to kiss my wife for the first time -- not why or how or where, anyone would remember that -- but what it was physically and emotionally like; awkward and sweet. Life slowed down for me when I met her. It got better. These kinds of moments have to be internalized because they will stay with you and guide you forever.
Something your mother and I are really, really trying to be perceptive of is how much we enjoying each of those moments with you. Yes, we will remember the first teeth, the first steps, the millionth laugh -- but we also remember your first look of recognition, the first time you looked upon mom and me as if you had wished on everything for us. How happy it made us that you approved of who we were, and that it meant everything to you to be a part of our small family. You were all we wished for too. We remember.
For our first anniversary, your mother and I set out on kind-of a big fucking adventure knowing that the chances of being as whimsical and free of the real-deal responsibilities in the near future were dwindling. Mom had the hilarious idea to try to invent you on this trip, and together we were dead set on naming you after the relevant city: Rio. Relax, it could have been Casablanca had only Morocco been more inviting to its female guests.
If you do the maths, well, obviously, that didn't happen. You granted us a couple more months of leisure and latitude that we parlayed to a bunch of really fun, really drunk nights of scenester dancing. I thank you for this because this is surely something that would have never been a part of our history -- your mothers and mine -- because, though short-lived, it was fucking wild and fucking spontaneous, and just generally a nice time to spend as a happy couple. A moment.
But back to Brazil: One of my favorite memories -- one of those nearly imperceptible life-moments that I've been going on about here -- was after our visit to the top of Corcovado to see Cristo Redentor. Shopping around the district of Ipanema, we deviated into a very quiet and quaint record store, more similarly resembling a musical library than a place of commerce. There was a kind, older gentleman keeping inventory of the place, which would have been better suited in an educational setting or research institution someplace away from the bustle of Rio. The gentleman, without other customers to tend to (not that it would have mattered) led your mother and I on a very precise and historical audio tour of Brazil's most famous musical export: Bossa Nova, playing one record after the next with the grace of a professor and the enthusiasm of a student.
This was a moment. I could remember myself thinking that: remember everything, as if willing myself to internally ledger the smells of the vinyl, the very low din of ambient noises coming from the megalopolis of 13 million people, painted and accompanied onto the pantomimed bodies of women in sarongs walking towards the beach and men in yellow Brazil jerseys walking to the pub. There was something so pure and genuine about listening to first-print records from this man's impressive, but concise collection. This was an art class taught by the distinguished scholar, surreal in perspective, as we were his only audience, surreal in proximity because we were literally in the center of Brazil's cultural mass of humanity.
The next record played, and he lit a smile:
At this point in time, as I'm listening to him precisely place the correct "ba-bum" percussion beats with his articulators, it is quite difficult to resist a squeeze of your mother's hand in silent urge to cede our former lives, take up a small residence near the beach, and set forth on an alternate autobiographical path. It was in that moment, where the bustle of soot and industry and millions futbol fans bypassing the storefront, that time slowed to its most deliberate crawl. I'm telling you son, find these moments and capture them.
Instead of selling our worldly possessions and camping on the beach forever, we regained our sensibilities and went to a Bossa Nova niteclub instead. Gruff with knowledge and perspective, we proceeded to drink rum-and-cokes and "ba-buh" to the beats until we could no longer distinguish between Portuguese and a stapler. We smiled at people when they looked at us.
Life is just a collection of these moments, and the way you process them, sequence, and recollect them makes your own library of nostalgia. That is what I live for, this is how I slow life down because it will move too fast if you let it.
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