Without the celestial layaway we need to live life and then rely on our own inner layaway machine, that part of our memory that filters and files our life so indiscriminately. And there in lies the rub. We remember moments, not hours or minutes and then not necessarily the moments we want to remember. I have an unreasonable fear that the only thing I’m going to remember about my wedding day is that the hand dryer in the men’s restroom was manufactured in Wisconsin. Even if we make a conscious effort at the time we appear to have no control over which moments are captured and can be developed later for our viewing pleasure. Like Wordsworth and his daffodils;

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils

 

And so I sit here at Charlie’s having breakfasted, hoping that at least some of these moments of this or prior breakfasts have been captured in the fickle gossamer of my memory, visible to my inward eye, lending some ability to relive this moment again. The satisfaction of a full stomach, the caffeine in my veins, the soft gentle wind (my venticello), caressing my skin, the green canopy of my shade tree and of course the ocean with its waves crashing relentlessly, pounding the sand into submission. Anyone of these moments would be nice to recall at some future date.

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Big Leaf

Paradise Lost - Koh Samui, Thailand, January 2006

The Celestial Layaway