Savor the Present Moment
Lessons From My Father
In 1969, Pete Seeger and his wife Toshi Seeger had the sloop Clearwater built to advocate for cleaning up the Hudson River.
I have had two clear “awakening” experiences in my life. The first was as a third-grader in Brooklyn when my class took a trip to tour Pete Seeger’s boat. As I lay on the deck with my eyes closed, the sun warmed my face as the boat rocked gently on the water. Palms resting against the polished wood, a strong sense of awe and reverence filled me. Suddenly, I had the best feeling of my entire life: CONNECTION.
I was one with the wooden boards under my body, the trees that created them, the soil, water, and air— the entire universe. I was safe, held, whole. Soon I felt filled with a tangible, thick, golden life force that nurtured me on every level. In fact, as I’m writing about it now close to fifty years later, I can still connect with that energy.
The second experience also happened decades ago, this time while I was cleaning the wooden floor in my guesthouse. It was late in the evening, and I’d been rushing to get the place ready for visitors. It was a particularly difficult floor to clean because the edges of the boards were angled in such a way that there was a V-shaped groove between each one where dirt would wedge in.
I remember exactly where I was standing—the hallway between the front door and the bathroom—when I looked around and determined my job was finally done. Cleaning supplies in hand, I exhaled in relief that I could finally head back to my kids and all the other duties awaiting me.
Just then, one of our dogs walked in carrying an old rotten baked potato she must have nabbed from the compost pile. As she took a bite, the smelly potato crumbled into countless tiny pieces all over my spotless floor. She looked at it, decided it wasn’t worth eating, and simply walked away. Looking down at the unappealing mess, I wanted to cry.
I had no choice but to start cleaning once again. Grudgingly, I got down on my hands and knees. Then suddenly, everything shifted. I was completely present. My mind—a mind that a moment before was spinning in frustration and irritation as it bemoaned the situation and worried about running late—had for some unknown reason gone totally silent. So there I was, slowing and reverently cleaning up the potato, without any rush or judgment. I felt relaxed, peaceful, joyous—savoring everything about the moment. It felt magical, as if I had stepped into a completely different world.
It’s good for me to remember the gentle ecstasy of cleaning that rotten potato off the floor, because I so often fall into the trap of saying NO to this moment and this life—delaying my YES until my outer situation is more to my liking. I forget that it’s usually not what I am doing that’s important, rather it’s how I am doing it.
My father understood this. He wrote that before he embarked on his healing quest, waiting for a better tomorrow had become his way of life. “The modest pleasures of each day, my enjoyment of the now, were traded for an uncertain future.” One essential piece of wisdom he shared was to savor the present moment, no matter what is going on, even when we’re experiencing pain.
My father was able to maintain a state of inner peace and optimism even when my sister, Ruthie, was living with him and my mom for two years in her late twenties while struggling with a debilitating illness. While my sister and mother experienced intense worry and grief, my father was able to bring much-needed smiles, good cheer, and light into those dark years, despite his concern and sorrow over his daughter’s condition.
Mendek with granddaughter, Marea, wife Edith, and daughter Ruthie; 1990.
“As soon as I stop worrying about the future or ruminating about the past,” he wrote, “I can reconnect to the wisdom that resides within me. Once again, I am able to access a deep trust and find happiness in the little, everyday moments of my life.”
My father lived his life as if everything was his meditation. He gave his full attention to getting dressed in the morning, walking down the stairs to the kitchen, cooking his oatmeal—nothing was too small or unimportant. My dad never wasted today in anticipation of a better tomorrow.
While I have not come close to living my life with the calm reverence of my father, I have begun to observe that rushing to get through this moment so I can enjoy that future moment usually only reinforces my rushing tendencies, while undermining my ability to savor life. When I think about my dramatic experiences lying on that special boat as a little girl or cleaning a rotten potato as a harried working mother, I know my father had it right: Presence is where peace lives.
“Quest for Eternal Sunshine—A Holocaust Survivor’s Journey from Darkness to Light” is the story of Mendek Rubin, a brilliant inventor who endured three horrendous years in Nazi slave labor concentration camps while most of his family was murdered in Auschwitz. Mendek eventually turned his genius on his own psyche, figuring out innovative ways to heal from his enormous traumas to live a joyous and peaceful life. The book—a posthumous collaboration between Mendek and his daughter, Myra Goodman—is based on an unfinished manuscript Myra discovered after her father’s death.
Mendek was an extremely curious, imaginative, and inventive person from the time he was a young boy. At only seven, he devised a key that could open any lock. His family owned a hardware store in their small town of Jaworzno, Poland, and if someone accidentally locked themselves out of their home, Mendek was the one sent to open the door.
Just like the universal key he’d invented as a child, Mendek discovered the keys to freeing himself from the psychological prison he’d been trapped in for decades to find his way back to love. In this “Keys to Happiness” series, Myra shares some of the important lessons she is continuing to learn from her father every day.