11
Freeze the Moment

LIFE IS FULL of magical moments, not all of which can be photographed, videotaped, or digitized. One way to preserve special experiences that you’d regret forgetting is to “freeze the moment”—to take an intentional mental picture of everything you see, hear, sense, and feel at a particular juncture in time and then permanently commit it to memory. A “freezable moment” is the split second of joy, beauty, laughter, irony, celebration, mystery, intrigue, exhilaration, wonder, or grace that makes us feel at one with the universe. It’s the flash of inspiration that reassures us life is worth living if only to have been alive at that exact instant.

Some of my top freezable moments include the first time I saw the incredible Pacific sunset, the moment I met my future wife, the day I got accepted into graduate school and my grandpa told me how proud he was of me, the many times I’ve laughed so hard with my best friends that my stomach ached, and the afternoon I watched the Grateful Dead play one of the most amazing sets ever at Frost Amphitheater.

Favorite freezable moments also include seeing the vibrant turquoise color of the water in Tahiti, experiencing the bliss of getting lost in Venice, noticing the way the mountains turn purple in Lake Arrowhead as daylight fades, hearing my wife say “I love you” to me for the very first time and then “I do” when we got married, holding my children just minutes after each of them was born, seeing our old dog Scruffy hoarding all of our covers in the middle of the night as if she owned the bed, feeling the exhilaration and exhaustion as I crossed the finish line in the only marathon I’ll probably ever run, watching the look on my son’s face when he came into the ballgame with bases loaded and no outs and then pitched a scoreless inning, and savoring the way my daughter still becomes a little girl again every time I tuck her in and say goodnight.

Beyond relying on memory or the use of a camera or video recorder, you can freeze the moment in a number of other ways. For instance, you can write down a detailed description of the freezable moment in a journal or you can simply call someone and tell him or her about it. Alternatively, you can share it with others via e-mail or on a social networking site. In addition, you can set aside time to memorialize this special moment through a celebration or by developing your own traditions.

Make a conscious effort to imprint your life’s most amazing moments forever in your mind so you’ll never have the regret of forgetting them. By preserving the memories of these snapshots in time, you can go back and experience them again and again. While you can’t turn back the clock, you can always revisit the best times of your life when you learn to freeze the moment.

Freeze the moment
so you can always revisit
the best times of
your life.

∼ What are some of your favorite “freezable moments”?

∼ What made them so memorable?