May I have a moment of your time?
Author: Lindsay Kellock

May I have a moment of your time?


''We look before and after,
We pine for what is not,
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught …''
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ode to a Skylark

By Lindsay Kellock

I was on a stage, reading to an audience that I could not see in the darkened hall. I thought of the words, their meaning, and of sending my voice clearly to the back of the room. Suddenly, I saw a blinding flash reaching through the darkness and into my right hand. I knew in that moment, that the light was a living connection to my listeners. For one instant, I was a conduit of that light. Afterward, it was clear that my verses had reached and touched the audience. Although the realization was satisfying, it was the moment of connection to others that proved unforgettable. It transformed my life. It empowered me. And I found it enormously comforting.

Did it ever occur to you that we remember moments, rather than days? As we grow older and move through hardship and failure and illness and worry, we may not have many truly whole happy days. But we can have happy and transforming moments.

When that intense sense of connection infused me, I knew that our power comes from a presence both within and without us. I knew that we can enjoy our this power, and let it be a light to others. I knew that I could trust it to fill me and use me for the best.

Those moments visit us when we make room for them. Each day, do something you want to do, whether it fits with your schedule or not. If you cannot find even fifteen minutes, change your scheduling. It is too harsh. Each day, practise slowing your pace, just a little. When the temptation to rush returns, remember, this is your moment and you have a right to it. You want to experience and savour the joy, and place it in a treasure chest with other moments you have gathered.

If you are a busy executive, find a simple bread recipe, buy and set out all your ingredients, add a dash of relaxing music, and make a loaf or two of bread. It is important to make it by hand, without hurry. The mixing will take about twenty minutes, the first kneading about ten minutes. Then you're free until the next rising, and so on until you shape the loaves and pop them into the oven. You'll have another forty or fifty minutes to fulfil obligations. Your nose and the timer will tell you when your work of art is ready. Can't you just taste a hot, crumbly slice, dotted with cold butter? Can you hear the compliments? ''You made this? How on earth did you do it?"

The knights in the days of old studied the art of courtship. This is your art, too. Court those moments. Put yourself in the way of inspiration. If you can't find a child to join you, buy a ticket to the merry-go-round at the local fair, and, despite the curious looks, board it. Enjoy the ride. No ferris wheels, please, they are too fast for your purposes. Lock your cell phone in your desk drawer and take your book to the park for a half hour. Read or watch the squirrels. Write a story in a child's exercise book. Read it aloud to yourself. If you're too frightened to try this, don special clothes. I have a dollar-store tiara I wear to write.

I am not saying that we can command these moments to attend us. What I am suggesting is that we can make it easier for them to appear, by leaving space for them. By and by, you may, like the poet, T.S. Eliot, consider your moments the most important and treasured parts of your life and ''…ridiculous the waste sad time before and after.. ''as he wrote in The Four Quartets.








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Lindsay Kellock is a writer, editor, communicator and writing coach. She works with writers to inspire and strengthen their writing and their enjoyment of life. Her monthly newsletter, Inspiration & Elbow Grease, is available at her web site, htpp://www.yourbooksbestfriend.com

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