Living in the empty cup of now.

I've scarecly lived in the now, in the present moment. Maybe I did when I was a kid, but certainly not since that awful train wreck of puberty de-railed my childhood innocence. Since then my thoughts are continually thrashing about in an anxiety-ridden mosh pit. If I'm not bitterly regreting the past, I'm agonizing about the future.

I take that back.

I did live in the present once, if only for a few minutes, eight years ago.

I was riding a bus home from work. All the noise in my head stopped. It was quiet. In that moment I said yes to real Life and anything it wanted to lay on me: nuclear holocaust, cancer, blindness, the loss of several limbs, I said yes to it all in that grace-filled moment. I wasn't the least bit afraid.

I got off that bus on tippy-toes of utter trust and tried my damnest to nurse that uncreated energy, make it last forever, don't spill the grace.

But I spilled it. And what I didn't spill slowly drained out through my leaky, piss-ass wine-skins. So many times life filled me up and I spilled it and spilled it and spilled it, until I finally lost my sippy cup.

I was forgiven once. Tears of gratitude streamed down my face and I felt like a small child.