Word of the Year: Joy 8: Here and Now, Boys

 

Parrots, Kansas City Zoo, Missouri. September 2018.

 

In Island, by Aldous Huxley, mynahs sound a chorus throughout the land. The birds' refrain consists of two messages: 

Attention! 

Here and now, boys, here and now! 

 

Character Susila MacPhail explains:

 'That's what you always forget, isn't it? I mean, you forget to pay attention to what's happening. And that's the same as not being here and now.'"

When I catch myself in a fruitless exercise of rewriting my past or fretting about a future, I say aloud: Here and now, boys, here and now! 

Look around you, girl. Live where you be now. 

It is inside moments, even in fearful times, where I can see joy.

If I choose.