Maybe you've heard the idea- if you’re thinking too much about where you want to be in life, stop to think about the fact that the present is actually a manifestation of something you asked for in the past.
I go through periods of very deep concern about where I am, which is an upgrade to the almost desperate feeling times when I wanted something so much but didn’t have a clue how on earth it could ever happen. Or when I finally had something I’d wanted, but still felt like I couldn’t enjoy it because other areas of my life weren’t feeling “lined up”. For me, these are the kinds of thoughts that most quickly take me from the beautiful now and create a baseline state of unease, kind of like the irritation caused by a refrigerator’s background noise (what I’m dealing with as I write this) until it clicks off and you notice the absolute peace you’d been missing.
This idea came sliding into my consciousness the other day when I found myself in a park I haven’t been to for eleven years- le Jardin de la Fontaine in Nîmes. My husband and I drove to Nîmes so I could have lunch with an old friend and he could say bye to another one who’s about to end whatever dream he was living here before returning to America -because it wasn’t such a dream after all.
We met afterwards to walk through the park and enjoy the rest of the sunshine before a two-hour drive home. When I was last there in 2011, I’d taken a day trip from Avignon where I lived that year. It had been a weekday at the height of Provençal summer heat and, as I tend to in new places, I let myself be led by streets that looked pretty or whichever ones had the amount of sun I needed. One perfectly shaded street turned away from the city’s traffic and then split down the middle by a canal with walls up to street level balustrades. I watched koi fight over a chunk of bread and followed the greenish water leading to iron gates with decorative details dipped in gold.
I remember it being beautiful, but how amazing beauty makes you feel in its presence is one of the things that gets lost in the translation of a memory.
It had been emptier that day. I’d walked past the 1st century temple to Diana, Roman goddess of the hunt, to look down into the spring that feeds the canals. Here, the walls became archways through which the water could flow under the ground we walked on. Medici vases and statues of nymphs accented the garden’s symmetry. I’d continued through the cloud of perfume blown off blossoming horse chestnut trees up steps that made me feel like a queen climbing to the front entrance of her chateau and found a place on the grass under some pines where I could lie until either I or the day cooled off enough to continue exploring. That year, it was these kinds of moments when I couldn’t stop my thoughts from turning to highly detailed fantasies of being able to live in France full time. As I’d met my now husband a few months before and had only brief encounters with him, those also included detailed wishes for being able to be with him, travel with him, and just be in his presence in beautiful but lonely moments like this. Absolute daydreams that couldn’t possibly come to fruition.
Having my heart still connected to someone else back home at the time, I’d left France and didn’t speak to him or even follow him online like the creeps that we can all be since the advent of social media.
An account of the blind trust I had to have in my messages that led me back to France, married to this person I’d wished into my life for so long, is too much to include here. But walking in this park, past the same spot where I’d lain on the grass wishing for him that day felt like a confusing miracle. It’s a little like returning to the scene of a crime and being in awe that you got away with it. Or a like meeting up with a former version of yourself in a physical place instead of just in your head. We’re both here, touching and hearing and smelling the same things- the sweet sweet smell of blooming trees at the park’s entrance.
I had to quietly give myself some gratitude for having created this experience, even if a lot of it might have been through obsessive visualization (before I knew visualization had power).
So be so careful with your daydreams.
Sometimes visualization can feel forced or a little like you don’t know what amazing things to paint into the picture. Instead, try imagining your future self, walking up to you where you are right at this moment, maybe lying on the grass all-consumed by wanting things you can’t imagine you’ll ever have, just to say hi and show you a few of the treasures from your future.
Where have your daydreams been leading you lately?