Come Up For Air

A few weeks ago I had an incredible opportunity to travel to Mexico with a conservation organization. I was drawn to the trip because it included whale watching in an area where gray whales frequently stop as they migrate up the coast. I had been whale watching once before in Oregon. Though I saw just one at a distance, I can easily remember how excited I was to see the spout shooting skyward.

So you can probably imagine the pure joy I felt when I saw my first gray whale spy hop from the ocean a mere fifty feet away, or the awe I felt when a whale surfaced alongside the boat and curled right underneath us, swimming so shallowly that I could see the barnacles clinging to its skin. The whales were beautiful, and for moments at a time my attention was captured by my senses–the sights, the sounds, the smells. Watching them I felt a humble mix of wonder, love, and camaraderie.

On my last day in Mexico, we were driving through a seemingly endless desert when I saw a small group of cows ahead. They were lying on the edge of the road, forcing the driver to perform an evasive maneuver. I was surprised and delighted to see these cows, and in my excitement I made some unintelligible exclamation (as I sometimes do). The guide turned around in his seat to look at me and laughed. He said, “You’re more excited about seeing cows than whales!” I laughed, too, because as I thought about his comment, he sort of had a point.

My daydreams about this trip had been saturated by my desire to see whales. What we saw or did the rest of the time didn’t really matter to me, so long as I had an experience with a whale. Yet the entire trip provided moments just as worthy of my rapt attention, like watching the sunrise over the mountains from the roof of the hotel or the sandpipers scurrying away from the waves on little stick legs that looked much too delicate for their bodies. If I had only paid attention to my number one priority, thinking that the rest wasn’t as important, I would have missed out on so many beautiful moments. I would have missed out on those sleepy cows, which I can honestly remember as vividly as the whales in all their majesty.

Yet how often do I do this in day-to-day life, so set on accomplishing one task that I miss out on the moments along the way? So determined to learn a song on the guitar that I don’t feel the way the sound cocoons me each time I play a note. So focused on willing my dog to poop before I leave for the day that I don’t notice the daffodils are starting to bloom. So fixated on getting dinner in the oven that I don’t notice the bright colors of the vegetables I am chopping.

Our rush to cross the finish line prevents us from experiencing where we are right now with focused attention. Instead one moment blurs into the next and the next until we accomplish the thing we set out to do, feeling a brief happiness in our achievement before setting our sights on a new destination and starting over. If we can slow down and give our attention to the entire journey, as if each moment matters, we can more fully experience our lives.

This might be easier to practice while on vacation in Mexico than at my office or the grocery store, but I’m still going to try. The number of moments in my life won’t change, but I’ll be present in more of them.