Here I Am Now

David K. Reynolds is a psychotherapist who is an authority on Japanese psychotherapeutic methods. I found this piece that he wrote in "Thirsty, Swimming in the Lake:"

Today, walking along the beach, I spotted a rock, slick and shiny. It attracted my attention, and I picked it up. But on closer inspection it turned out to be shiny because it was wet. As it dried, the rock became ordinary. It was jsut a rock. I was disappointed at first, and I alomst threw it away. But the rock had been wonderfully smoothed by the sand and the waves. Although it was merely a plain rock ground smooth by the elements, it turned out to be worth keeping, even treasuring.

I found another rock as I walked the beach today. It, too, had been ground down and poliched by reality. It had no sharp edges anymore. When I walk too fast I miss these small, smooth rocks that so fascinate me. They are my cousins, somehow, models of what I would like to become. But here I am now.

Here...

I...

Am...

Now.

This is, I believe, an essential bit of personal learning if a person is going to follow their way into this lifestyle -- into slavery. It is necessary to come to understand that "now" is the important time. What is past is history, and what is future is entirely the stuff of dreams. There is no reality in that projecting backwards or forwards. Reality is critical to the one who would serve as slave.

I remember, in my early evolution into BDSM, that I asked some "more experienced" people I had come to know what it would be like once the "novelty" had worn off, and this had all become "commonplace" in my life. Their silence was deafening. They weren't at all critical, but it was also clear that they found the question to be so naive that answering it was almost inconceivable.

I understand now.

I am, at this moment, in the place that I wondered about way back in the beginning. I am in the life at a level that makes all of this feel "commonplace." I barely remember that eager, breathless, wide-eyed novice.

I've gotten my corners ground off. My surface has been smoothed and polished. Some will look at the life I live and find that there is very little that is remarkable, interesting, or exciting here anymore. They are, perhaps, right in some absolute sense. We have come to walk slower, spank less, sleep more. We've come to value the times when we manage to "make love" together -- nevermind that it isn't all that kinky.

Our past is our past. It is still visible as we look backwards through the mists. The place where we came from; the beginning for us. But it is gone, and we are learning that we cannot go back. The future is full of unanswerable questions. It is a mystery and a dream. I can get myself all worked up into a full-on tizzy when I get into fussing about what lies ahead. The truth is that we have this present moment. Whatever we planned or envisioned, whatever we might hope for, we are here. Now.

There is a peacefulness to finding the way to that awareness. It is good for me, to not reminisce and not anticipate. Far better for me to simply remember:

Here I am now.

swan