Press fresh

Recently, my husband did something unexpectedly old-fashioned and sentimental – he pressed a rose for my daughter. He slid the rose we gave her for her first dance recital between the pages of an enormous volume of William Shakespeare’s unabridged works, stacked a dozen heavy books on top of that and let it sit in a warm dry closet for two weeks. The rose emerged dime-thin and lovely. It’s framed in my daughter’s room with a little note that says, “Your first performance. June 2012.”

Because we aren’t in the habit of pressing flowers (or making potpourri sachets or needle-point for that matter), he fired up ye olde internet to research the DIY of smushing petals.  As you can imagine, there are many variations and dos and don’ts associated with the art of the flower press.

For example…Tight buds don’t work as well as opened blooms. The flowers must be dry (picking them in the afternoon is better than the dewy early morning). And, most importantly and interestingly to me….flowers should be pressed when they are fresh.

Make sure you press flowers when they are fresh, and preferably without moisture.

For us, that meant my daughter’s rose resided in a vase for a day or two and then disappeared into the homemade book-press. Honestly, I was surprised to see the rose reappear preserved and framed in her bedroom; I thought my husband had thrown it away.

Since then, my imagination has been captured by the ideas of preserving mementos when they are freshest, and pressing memories at their peak before they lose their bloom. Switches and levers are being pulled in my imagination about… The physicality around pressing a moment in time, pressing it into my body, my heart, my mind. Pressing a memory by breathing it in, stamping it on, layering it fresh between the pages of my conscious mind and squeezing so the color remains.  Intentional snapshot-taking. Recognizing that something wonderful is happening in the moment and fully taking it in. Leaning into life, pressing into life, being present to life, remembering life….as it’s happening.

Generally, I am a future-oriented person. I don’t pay attention to the present and can’t remember the past. There are some great upsides to being future-oriented – planning ahead, being ahead, moving ahead and thinking strategically; seeing new possibilities on the horizon; getting excited about what’s coming; etc. However, there are days – whole days – when I’m simply not present in my life. I turn out the light at bedtime and think, “What did I do today?” and I won’t be able to remember. Or I feel like it happened at a distance to someone else.  Often I’m in such a rush to get thru one day so I can get to the next day, to get thru with that day to get on to the next thing. I hear myself saying, even about experiences that I really like and look forward to —  “I’m gonna do it, get thru it, and then it will be over.”  Cross it off the list, onto the next task/moment/experience/commitment. Sure, this can be a result of over-scheduling and having tough, challenging or unpleasant tasks to slog thru. But for me, pushing hard thru life with blinders on is often about self-protection (if you can’t catch me, you can’t hurt me), maintaining iron control, and the desire to ignore what’s really bubbling under the surface of my mind (doubt, confusion, guilt, regret). And there’s the very real and secret fear that I am too small – too small to survive a full-on embrace with the beauty, awesomeness and awfulness of life.  But none of us is too small, right? We are all just the right size. And our spirits, our selves are enormous.

I want to change the way I experience my life. It’s not a race to the finish. I don’t want to spend all of my time in some detached head-space of ideas, future occurrences, phantom anxieties, and hyper plan-making. Life is too short not to live it, right? It’s time to acknowledge that life is happening…right…now.

Especially now that I have a wee one who’s changing before my eyes.  She will never be 2 days old again, 76 days old, 365 days old, or 1446 days old again. The size of her hand in my hand will change; the way she sings to herself, holds her pencil, jumps into my arms, uses my shoulder as a napkin, asks me for help – all will change. Her childhood will bloom and fade naturally, like mine did, like all adults.  Do I really want to miss that? Or can I make the decision to press all of those memories into my body, heart, and mind, as they are happening? Can I pause, take a mental snapshot and savor the essence of that time? When those moments are freshest, will I recognize them, breathe them in and press, press, press into life?

How are you at pressing moments?  How do you press into life?