“The beginning is always today.” ― Mary Shelley

Saturday arrives and I’m reminded of so much that’s missing from my life right now. I even made a list. Of course in moments like this I don’t think about all that’s been added by friends and family to my life. So many good things that ought to be put on my list. But that doesn’t fit the immediate narrative.

Bad news comes to all of us. Sometimes it’s relatively minor but still very hard, can you imagine being quarantined on a cruise ship? Life threatening diseases, auto accidents, or economic disasters can drastically change everything in a moment or take long years to devastate.

“But in real life things don’t go smoothly. At certain points in our lives, when we really need a clear-cut solution, the person who knocks at our door is, more likely than not, a messenger bearing bad news. It isn’t always the case, but from experience I’d say the gloomy reports far outnumber the others. The messenger touches his hand to his cap and looks apologetic, but that does nothing to improve the contents of the message. It isn’t the messenger’s fault. No good to blame him, no good to grab him by the collar and shake him. The messenger is just conscientiously doing the job his boss assigned him. And this boss? That would be none other than our old friend Reality.”  ― Haruki Murakami

I was in the grocery looking at items I would never buy again (tomatoes). On Saturday mornings I always used to cook tomatoes for my wife’s breakfast in bed.

“The past beats inside me like a second heart.” ― John Banville

While gazing at those crates full of Saturday morning memories, I thought about that man I had just passed in the parking lot. He was sitting out just past the parked cars. It looked to me as if he was wearing pajamas and a ski cap. I think he was waiting for someone to come and pick him up. He was sitting there patiently in his wheelchair.

With that “poor me” list in my head and pushing my cart through the produce section I realized that guy in the parking lot was a dramatic sign. He was a message for me about my here and now. I think there are signs like that all around us and we usually miss out because our spiritual eyes aren’t attentive enough.

You and I both know how the past can hold us back from moving on:

• unforgiven friends and relations
• people and places you missed
• conflicts that never got resolved
• wonderful memories that can be no more

Some of the most difficult obstacles in anyone’s life involve dealing with the past in healthy ways. Problems like these are part of the human condition.

“In magic – and in life – there is only the present moment, the now. You can’t measure time the way you measure the distance between two points. ‘Time’ doesn’t pass. We human beings have enormous difficulty in focusing on the present; we’re always thinking about what we did, about how we could have done it better, about the consequences of our actions, and about why we didn’t act as we should have. Or else we think about the future, about what we’re going to do tomorrow, what precautions we should take, what dangers await us around the next corner, how to avoid what we don’t want and how to get what we have always dreamed of.” ― Paulo Coelho

Who wants to spend today, sitting in the crippling past, waiting for who knows what future to come? Instead, get up each day and make something new out of your life. That’s my challenge. Find something new in the produce section to buy! On this trip I bought some bok choy.