Presence of Mind

Take Some Time to Live in the Moment

article by Cindy G. Foust

Happy New Year BayouLife community! I hope your holiday season was filled with an over abundance of the three “F’s,” food, fun and fellowship. It’s interesting, however, that I’m writing this column the week before Christmas (we work a month ahead for magazine production), so my life is still in the middle of chaos and pandemonium of that same holiday season.

For one, Scott had a little health scare and we all know how those instances will slow you down and put you on auto-pilot, right? That same auto-pilot mode finds this writer in a big chair staring out the window, and wishing my donkey would make his way down to my house for some apples and carrots. Oh, I know that makes me sound like Laura Ingalls Wilder, doesn’t it… without the prairie, of course. And the log cabin. And the sunbonnet and pantaloons. Wait. Did I just use the word “pantaloons” in my column? I may have to have a discussion group with my daughter on the significance of pantaloons. Wait. There is no significance of pantaloons other than it’s a very fun word to type… and say.

Speaking of antique clothing, my daughter and I had the most wonderful day yesterday on Antique Alley. If you read my column, you know I will routinely morph from one idea to the next, but really, this “morphation” (this is in fact a word for all you Webster theologians out there as morphation is “the process of morphing into something different from that which previously existed”) can be connected to the holiday season, I promise.

Again, if you read my column (and I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t because it most certainly and comparatively makes yours seem like a cakewalk) you know I write often on the platform of “slowing it all down” and “taking the road less traveled sometimes.” To be clear, I am writing mostly to myself, because most of the time, I don’t live my life, it somehow very much lives me.

And the holidays? Typically just a blur and a haze while it creeps in and then flies right by.  I made a pact with myself that this year was going to be different and I was going to live in the moment and enjoy the season.

So, how did that work out for me (or how is that working out for me?) Yesterday started for me like any other Saturday, busy with the magazine production; laundry; cleaning; list making; day planning… anybody feel me? There is a boutique on Trenton Street that my daughter has wanted to visit and she ask me early in the day if we could go. My first reaction was: I’m too busy and important and I have way too much to do to shop.

I mean, Christmas is in 11 days and I have barely started my shopping, but okay, I’m too busy to shop. As I scurried around the house (I love scurrying around like a busy little…wait, what scurries? A mouse? I don’t want to be a mouse, they freak me out so what else scurries? I love my donkey, so I’ll use my donkey as the illustration) like a little donkey, busy with my thoughts and plans and list making and whatever else I deemed more important than spending an afternoon with my daughter (who never asks me to go shopping primarily because she doesn’t have time to breathe much less shop).

Suddenly, a lightening bolt of marvelous insight hit me square in the nose and I yelled up the stairs for my girl to get ready, we were heading out. Where you might ask? Because it certainly wasn’t on my “to-do” list, but the first stop was sushi and great conversation. We had a leisurely lunch and talked and talked and talked… mostly about everybody that wasn’t there (that’s what my dad says). Next we bought wrapping paper and because navigation of this particular store was near impossible, we “scurried” out of there like the two little donkeys we were. Next stop… Antique Alley.

It was my intention to just visit the store she wanted to shop in, but when we came out, Christmas was definitely in the air. We started out just looking in the windows of the lovely antique stores but the next thing you know, we are combing the aisles of each one. What a treat! To be able to share with my child so many wonderful “antique” things (her mother being one of them, just saying) was really neat. She squealed and laughed and ask questions…We saw everything from antique games, Tupperware, antique Barbies, old clothes and boots, and I have never seen so many salt and pepper shakers in my life. All around us were food trucks and carolers from a local high school (who made us both tear up as they made their way from store to store singing beautiful Christmas carols) and people strolling this lovely street… it was in a word… perfection.

If it weren’t for the fact that there was a taco food truck parked in the middle of the street, it would have felt JUST LIKE a Norman Rockwell painting. But here’s the point, and I know you didn’t think I would get there, but here I am.

In this first month of the new year (which is where we will be when this magazine hits your driveway), when the proverbial slate is clean and we are looking for ways to enhance our mental and physical well-beings, start the new year with the mindset that you will take some time to live in the moment, to shut down everything going on in your life and seize opportunities like this simple stroll down Trenton Street. I will never forget how I felt, standing behind a big bookshelf, watching my daughter pick up trinkets and jewelry and old records… like she was seeing them for the first time.

What I saw for the first time in a long time, was an afternoon that I would never be able to get back if I had let the opportunity slip past me. The reality is that we ALL live in the fast lane, we do, it’s true. We all let our lives “live” us when truth is, it just takes a split second to make a decision that allows you an afternoon that ends up being an early Christmas present.

The conversations, the laughs, the fun… it was spontaneous and at the risk of sounding like a Hallmark card, it was joyful. What do you say, readers, can you relate to any of this literary madness?

If you don’t believe anything I tell you, believe me when I reiterate that life is full of these glorious afternoons, so full, we just have to have the presence of mind to snatch them up when we can. My daughter will be off to college in a little over four years and I know I will long for these moments, so I am grateful for this sort of lightening bolt moment and I am grateful for the opportunity to share it with you.

Speaking of sharing, this month marks 7 years that Cassie has allowed me to write for BayouLife, so to Cass, thank you for the honor of allowing me to grace the pages of this wonderful magazine. And to you readers, thank you for the privilege of sharing my life, my children, my mistakes, my successes, and my own “antique” history with you and your family. Because no matter what walk of life we take each day, we are all bound by the same love for our children, our family, our friends and this beloved community that we are lucky to be a part of. 

Cindy G. Foust is a wife, mom, author and blogger. You can find her blog at the alphabetmom.com for weekly columns about home life, parenting, small business stories and insight with a smidgen of literacy. Give her a like or follow on Facebook and Instagram.