Carpe Moment

I’m often bewildered by the television ads for drugs that help people with terminal diseases live longer. The gist is that every second of every day matters, represented by a parent helping a child into their costume for a school play or a loving couple drinking coffee on a park bench.

What I wonder is how more time can feel like anything other than a futile stall tactic? How can, say, a serial killer on Death Row truly enjoy that Big Mac she ordered as her last meal?

It’s something I can’t get my head around, since apprehension is my middle name, and my other middle name is dread. But here we are, gifted an extra day in sunny California courtesy of a snowstorm back home, and I am trying to savor every bonus second.

Actually, I feel good as I write this. The air is warm and smells like eucalyptus. I am in the moment until my bully brain shoves me toward the rental car return, and whether it’s okay we’ll be a day late. I resist with an immediate, more pressing concern: fresh pineapple, or chocolate peanut butter ice cream? The ice cream wins.

On my way to the kitchen, Sam stops me. He’s delighted. He hands me a snow scraper for when we get back to Connecticut. “I ordered it on Amazon last night, and it’s already here,” he says. “We’ll definitely need it, if we can even find our car in the lot. We’re just lucky we have four-wheel drive.”

Sam is a challenge but no match for chocolate peanut butter ice cream. I bury the scraper in the closet, under my hat and gloves, and convince Sam to join me and the moment for a swim in the pool.