To live is to choose …
Will I trust?
Will I risk?
Will I have the courage to venture out or will I shrink back in fear?
… but then also to act with precision and incisiveness.
To act.
I am relaxing on the back step, feet up, reading Yes to Life by Victor Frankl. My attention drifts upward to study the bees frenetically buzzing amongst the purple cornflowers, extracting the nectar with seeming desperation. They sink into its fragrant essence with passion and surrender and refuse to abandon their pursuit until they are satiated with the sweet sustenance.
Oh, for the enthusiasm to be so invested in life!
The invitation of each moment is to mine the depths of bliss.
To choose.
My mind probes the bee’s psyche. Which flower would I choose to enter?
Does it matter? Absolutely.
At the back of the garden, a hummingbird haphazardly flits from flower to flower. In truth, each movement is metered and mapped with surgical precision. With wings beating at 50 to 200 times per second it cannot afford an errant choice!
I consider my choices:
weed my garden?
mop the floor?
kiss my beloved?
sip a glass of wine as we watch the sunset?
dance tango?
Does it matter?
According to the bees and hummingbirds and Victor Frankl, (survivor of Auschwitz and author of the seminal book, Man’s Search for Meaning), our choices are the determinant of life or death.
Just months after his release from the concentration camp, he reflected:
Every moment leads us to a decision point… Everything depends on each person, through action and not mere words, creatively making the meaning of life a reality in his or her own being… life always has meaning… it only depends on us whether it is filled in every instant with this possible, ever-changing, meaning, … with complete specificity, in the concreteness of the here and now. (Victor Frankl, Yes to Life in Spite of Everything. Beacon Press, Boston, 2019)
To choose and to act.
In every action, with every choice, the when and why and how are paramount.
When I weed my garden I commit my body to the stretching and reaching, very deliberate in what I chose to leave and remove. I bless the coveted flowers and ask forgiveness of the opportunistic weeds that I uproot. A life-giving and life-taking action. My choice.
And when I mop the floor I smile and with reluctance, erase the remembrances of the feet that have graced our home and left behind evidence of presence and love.
And when I kiss my beloved I am sensitive to our lips sealing and their reluctance to part.
And when we relax into the beauty of the sunset, sipping our full-bodied, fruity Bordeaux (with earthy notes of wet gravel or pencil lead! Really? Who writes these liner notes?), we will revisit our wedding vows of 25 years displayed on the cabinet in our bedroom,
“No relationship is so spiritual or evolved that it is not enriched by the sharing of a glass of fine wine and chocolate.”
And when we dance … now here is choice and action of substance! Rugs to be lifted, furniture moved, music selected, wardrobes changed, leather-soled shoes with raised heels adding the requisite panache. Who knows? With the right ambiance and sensual embrace and refined technique, we may even dance our way up the staircase into some romance.
Ah … memories.
These days we settle for the wine-and-sunset pairing and sink back into the comfort of our Adirondacks, admiring with envy the lust of the bees and hummingbirds as they drain the last drops of nectar from floral chalices. We slowly savor our own version of sweetness.