gone fishing

whenever i go snorkeling, the little kid in me always wants to catch a fish with my bare hands, even though i know it's next to impossible.

it's maddening, they're so sneaky, those slippery little suckers...

and the more i chase them, the further away they swim. yet if i manage to stay still long enough, they'll swim around me, allowing me to appreciate their colorful beauty. i don't know why i feel such a need to grab and touch them. weird instinct, eh? yet i know we all feel it, as humans.

why do we chase things so hard, and feel a need to grab and hold onto them? why is this our first instinct, instead of allowing the beauty to come to us? sometimes, every once in a blue moon, we do capture the fish. we capture the moment, the goal, the prize. and it's so satisfying, yet one moment we have it, and the next, it's gone.

i don't know why i keep expecting that life will not be fleeting and ephemeral. i keep thinking that if i can just hold onto this moment of knowingness, it will last for all my life. that i can hold onto that peace and calm and place of nonresistance. but the current always changes and the seas never remain still for long.

so what's a snorkeler to do?

learning, and relearning, every single day. how to swim with the flow, how to breathe still, how to let the fish come to me, how to notice the colors...

(nyc)