[Fi] Perfect Moments

[nolla]

Perfect moment for me was when my extended family/I all lived in a big house together. Every dinner was spent with tables pushed together that literally went from the kitchen & towards the back end of the dining room. I LOVED watching everyone, the unity, the feeling that no matter how rough our day was, coming home to family to share a nice warm meal together was what made life special.

Made me remember how our experiences are different and the same at the same time. I felt like that when I was kid and the family came together for xmas. After I grew up, it seemed like it had always been a lie. All the little clusters that used to be the family and used to look like a happy one.

Big family dinners are a thing of the past. Yet another sacrifice in the name of individualism. It's strange, I have nostalgia for times when family meant something more than just the obligatory christmas visits, and I haven't personally experienced those times. When I look back to my childhood I feel sad for how happy I was.

 

[violaine]

I these stories.

 

[kiddykat]

Thanks for starting it! I this thread.

 

[GZA]

For maybe five years or so, my family, including cousins and aunts and uncles, would go skiing together for a week each march. My cousins had an old chalet in their family that was right on the mountain, so we could ski in and ski out as we pleased. It was at a private ski resort that some of our friends are members of, so it wasn't too crowded or anything.

The chalet was a big wooden house with split level floors. All of us young folks were guys, except one girl who unfourtunately couldn't come because she has medical problems making a local hospital an absolute neccecity at all times. All us guys have been really close since we were very young and we all slept downstairs in the basement that had walls lined with bunk beds. Upstairs there was a kitchen/living room with a giant sort of picnic table and couches lining the living room part. There was no TV, but we found an old Apple 2 computer with tonnes of games on it, and my cousins brought a laptop with good games, so we took turns playing those and talking with eachother.

Every day we would ski for many hours and then ski in and just laugh our asses off for hours. It was exhausting every single day, it was just non stop. We absolutely never run out of stuff to talk about or do because of our different personalities. Sometimes we would walk through the woods up the hill and then slide down on our asses after the groomers were done.

It's hard to capture in words exactly what this was, but it was a perfect moment that lasted a whole four or five days that occured every year for about five years. It was just complete love and brotherhood with your family, there's really no way to describe it other than that. We have so many lasting inside jokes and stories from those days, I don't even know what to say.

We still go skiing every year together, but it's at a different place now because we no longer have access to the chalet because the guy who owned the share of it in my uncles family sold it to one of the other share holders because it was beggining to get too expensive to keep up (it was 30 years old probably).

To this day we all wish we could go back and live there forever, or that someday we could build an exact replica of it on the same lot and do with with our own children.

I probably have a few others moments...

 

[violaine]

That is so cool.

To this day we all wish we could go back and live there forever, or that someday we could build an exact replica of it on the same lot and do with with our own children.

^um btw, awesome.

Yes, more please!

 

[Evi]

I remember a few years ago at a family friends home there was a group of about ten and someone decided that it would be a good idea to send the empty carved out watermelon bowl from supper down the creek. So we did. It was silly, but wonderful that we were doing some thing silly, everyone was in the same mindset, laughing joking, singing. The complete lack of sarcasm and reluctance. It was like a fairy parade in the moonlight, walking down the field road to the bridge. I remember that we each placed a hair from our heads in the watermelon before setting our fairy ship adrift. It was strangely peaceful, simple, good and perfect. One of us started to sing Into the West from Lord of the Rings, (We were a bit obsessed with that book as a group) as we watched the boat float away. At the time most of us were going through a great deal of change, it was as if the little boat held our dreams and futures. I rarely, if every see any of those friends anymore.

 

[StoryOfMyLife]

I remember that we each placed a hair from our heads in the watermelon before setting our fairy ship adrift. It was strangely peaceful, simple, good and perfect. One of us started to sing Into the West from Lord of the Rings, (We were a bit obsessed with that book as a group) as we watched the boat float away.

That's so sweet I was pretty obsessed over the books and the movies for a long while [I still love them!] and I always wondered if there was an equivalent 'West' for me somewhere. I hope your dreams came true!


Pink Piranha-- I loved your story. It was so captivating, I could see everything in my head playing out like a movie. The excitement of it, the wind going so strong that it could bring tears to your eyes-- such an amazing experience! I'm glad you shared it [it made me tear up a little bit to be honest, as stories such as this seem to do ].

As for myself, I've yet to have such a moment...there are plenty of things which have made me happy, though that level of inner peace and contentment..of satisfaction..has yet to find me, or I it. I'll assume it will happen when I am ready and able to meet some of my long-term goals. Or perhaps it will sneak up on me when I least expect. That would be fantastic.

 

[GinKuusouka]

My perfect moment came when a very dear friend of mine told me that he loves me. (He prefers men as partners, so it isn't quite that way.) In that moment, I felt completely at peace, knowing that his words were true and that I love him just as much. Mind to mind and heart to heart. Everytime I talk to him now, I'm transported back to that moment. Utter, gentle bliss.

 

[Evi]

"That's so sweet I was pretty obsessed over the books and the movies for a long while [I still love them!] and I always wondered if there was an equivalent 'West' for me somewhere. I hope your dreams came true!"

I'm still finding out!

 

[runvardh]

I was bored one Saturday while I was on business in Toronto. I took the subway down to Main St station and took a bus to the edge of a residential area near the lake shore. Took a short walk down a street and through a small park like area. The trees were still blocking the view to the lake, but I found a trail leading down a cliff. I took the path all the way down and found myself looking at nothing but trees, rocks and water. No buildings, no CN tower, not even boats on the water or graffiti. It was like I was transported to a different world, yet I was still in the middle of the city. My profile picture is from there.

 

[violaine]

^How wonderful.

 

[littledarling]

I was 18 and had just moved to Boston to be an au pair for a family I had never met before. The husband was Brazillian and only spoke a small amount of broken english, and the wife was french canadian and spoke french most of the time. They were quite a pair! My time spent in Boston with them overall was enchanting and I learned more through that experience than I ever thought I would. But there was one day in particular that seemed exceptionally wonderful. It was the first week in April and spring was finally just beginning to show it's face. It was Sunday, my one day off, and like all the sundays previously I was determined to fill my free day with as much experience as possible.
I was walking through Harvard square and the sun had come out and for the first time in months I felt warm. I felt beautiful. I was free. As a smile spread across my face I tilted my head up towards the sky and took off running. I ran through the streets and up through the gates of Harvard. I found a green patch of grass where the golden sun shone down and I lay flat against the earth, my limbs sprawled out in all directions. Lying there, breathless, my face towards the sun, I was perfectly happy. I knew in that moment that life was a gift and that I was going to not only enjoy it, but bask in it.

 

[cascadeco]

I don't know, maybe I'm weird, but I feel like I've had a lot of perfect moments - and with many of them, that's just what they were - an instantaneous moment where everything just alligned, and was beautiful and 'right' in my eyes. Just existance itself. But maybe too it's because I find myself comforted by the little things in life -- i.e. even sitting at home sometimes, with the late-afternoon sun shining through the window onto me...even that can make me absolutely happy and it is perfect even if only for a bit.

I think that's why life can be so..interesting. Perfection and complete joy and peace cannot last, but then I also think depending on how you look at it, you can find, or can learn to find, perfection in a myriad of things and experiences.

So I guess I'll be the only one here who doesn't have a specific story to share. I could give examples from my travels, from when I've been out in nature, periods of life that seemed more 'perfect' and when I was much happier than in other periods, moments shared with people that were/are absolutely precious to me....lots of possibilities. But I think what they share in common is a simple acceptance, peace, and awareness of the moment, in that moment -- existing fully in the present. Not in the past, not in the future. Now.

 

[violaine]

^I feel the same in that I have had many moments I would consider perfect, however one wants to define that. I don't even mean purely joyous moments, I would include some very sad and bittersweet experiences because they were the right thing at the right time.

 

[StoryOfMyLife]

"That's so sweet I was pretty obsessed over the books and the movies for a long while [I still love them!] and I always wondered if there was an equivalent 'West' for me somewhere. I hope your dreams came true!"

I'm still finding out!

Perhaps it is a lifelong achievement...to live and experience those dreams coming true as your life goes on.

 

[wedekit]

Well, I've posted this one before, but I felt like it was worth adding to this thread as well:

I have grown a lot since I've graduated from High School. Being a feeling male in a small rural town in Texas has held my personal growth back a lot. I hid it and labeled it "weak", since that was the common belief of guys who approached things at a personal level; someone who never said or did anything to intentionally hurt anyone else. I came to the liberal arts University that I am at now and I have bloomed and realized that I am no weaker than any other guy out there, and that my approach to life isn't any less masculine. (Not to mention masculinity isn't any kind of virtue to begin with.)

This weekend the sophomores in our Res Life staff went on small retreat to Galveston Island and stayed in a nice beach house. 11 of us total. I used to be frightened of the ocean, which struck me as ironic since NF is attributed to Water (as inferred by most Personality Tables). It just seemed like such a scary place and I always refused to swim in it. So much chaos and mystery.

This time, when I walked down to the beach shore it was much different. It was the most serene sight and sound I have ever experienced. I didn't realize before that the chaos and mystery was inside of me too. I stood and watched the waves roll in and draw out for as long as the others would let me. I would have swam out as far as I could if it wasn't Winter. Instead I settled for a seashell shaped like a swirling flower... to always remind me of who I am and how I flourished.

 

[violaine]

^I love this wedekit.

 

[wedekit]

^I love this wedekit.

I'm glad you enjoted it!

I still have the seashell. I keep it on my computer desk.

 

[violaine]

^Teehee I totally wanted to ask that Was going to go write on your wall....