Flashbulb Memories

There are moments in life when we encounter, however briefly, someone or something unexpected, beautiful, perfect, beyond description, in which we sense a larger beingness. We feel at the edge of a precipice transfixed, but connected to that larger sense of ourselves. The following are flash-bulb memories from my life and from friends who contributed them. Keep them coming!

A Great Goal

The soccer game started while a band played and the crowd shouted and laughed at the old men running up and down the field in shorts and waddling midsections. The town’s fathers had gathered several prominent citizens to play a game as part of the inauguration ceremonies for a new stadium. Dad, a lawyer and judge in the small town of my birth, was a 48-year-old defender. Seconds before the end of the first half, he stole the ball at midfield and began charging forward. Suddenly and unexpectedly, he stopped, swung his right leg back and kicked a cannon shot with his right foot towards the goalie nearly 50 yards away. The crowd groaned since it seemed like wasted effort. Remarkably, and against all expectations, the ball netted, and he scored the goal–‘un golaso’ or a superb goal, as many described it. In a town where soccer was king and everyone considered themselves experts, what happened that afternoon represented a minor miracle. Dad became a momentary superstar for the magic he had created. In my imagination, there would be a parade in his honor, a small statue of him placed in the center of town, and admiration toward all his family. In his typical way, he forgot the event, put his head down, and went to work the following day. It was a beautiful and transformative lesson for me, from a truly outstanding and humble man.

The Mona Lisa

Smart beyond measure, brilliant painter, architect, sculptor, inventor, and so much more, Leonardo da Vinci has always represented for me the ideal human being. From iconic paintings, like the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, designs for flying machines, and ground-breaking studies on optics and perspective, Leonardo da Vinci fused science with art and in the process created works that have become irreplaceable icons of the human story. He is the ultimate expression of an intuitive, unencumbered Original Mind, and someone I deeply admire. But of all his creations, the canonical example of his genius, at least for me, is the Mona Lisa. Like most of humanity, I am transfixed by this painting as reproduced in a variety of media.

In 1976, I found myself at the Louvre museum as part of a sightseeing trip to Paris. The entrance comprised a set of stairs at the top of which was the Venus de Milo. Walking up those stairs and encountering Venus felt like walking up heaven’s staircase to meet God. Yet, I did not linger with Venus for more than a few seconds, for I had one thing in mind, making my way to the Mona Lisa. I entered the room where she was hanging and remember the crowd gathered around her. My expectations, already sky-high, were off the chart as I slowly inched my way forward. Then, suddenly, there it was. I was in front of it. The shock that followed was unexpected and the disappointment earth-shattering, for I could not believe what was in front of me. In my mind, the Mona Lisa was large and yet here hung a comparably tiny version of what I held in my imagination. But that devastating emotional disappointment lasted only a brief instant, as I recognized what everyone else recognized. Here, in front of me, was the essence of beauty and something magical captured on a small canvas. For a moment, time stood still.

Joko Beck

When I met her in her late 70s, she sported short, grey hair and a grandmotherly demeanor, yet a youthful exuberance. I found her to be serious regarding her teaching and with a wonderful smile arising occasionally from her seriousness. I liked the fact she had shed many of the cultural trappings of Eastern Zen, including chanting and wearing of the robes. Joko Beck had become a well-known Zen teacher in the Pacific Beach area of San Diego. She had developed a fresh approach to teaching called “ordinary mind,” or Zen simplicity at its finest, which proved tremendously appealing. During our first encounter, the serenity surrounding her had a striking, palpable, and compelling quality. It drew me to attend Saturday meditation sessions and then three-day retreats. During each session, I met with Joko in teacher-student interviews.
            “Zen training,” she would remind me each time, “is learning how to work so you do it right, perfect in fact, with no extra anything, whether it is your job, gardening, shopping, whatever.” “In fact,” she would continue, “this requires little sitting–it’s more relating to everything in your life and taking care of it.”

“Do I need to come to the center to learn to do this?” I would ask.
            “Practice occurs anywhere and with anything,” she responded. “What happens at the center is I can provide you with encouragement and advice, but the actual practice is with your life in every moment. Life becomes your true teacher.”

My knowledge of Zen grew slowly as she imparted such wisdom during the four years I stayed as her student. After I left, our relationship turned into an apprenticeship of the heart, continuing with reading and reading of her book, “Everyday Zen.” Ever so slowly, Joko’s teaching transformed into life itself. As I walk this world, she is everywhere and I am eternally grateful.

The Bucking Horse: Chelsea Dorich

My mother once had an old Polo horse that was always going barn sour (feral). During those years, it was my job to break her so I could ride her again. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a horse being broken for riding, but it looks very much like the bronco riding event at a rodeo.

The old mare was tall even for a thoroughbred at 17 hands. She was fast, and she was strong. She threw me off many times before, with wounds that took weeks to heal.

One afternoon, I was again trying to stay in the saddle after she started her bucking dance. I had tried so many methods of falling and failed each time. That day, I had had it. I would avoid being burnt by the arena sand or caught under those hooves again if I could help it. Instead, I would try something absolutely unthinkable. I knew I was going to crash anyway if I did not. I would try a backflip and hope I didn’t crash into the fence or break my neck or… what have you.

I had nano seconds to take my aim and jump. I was so sure I would not make it.

Low and behold, I flew, dispersing the inertia and landing on my feet in the center of the ring unscathed. I looked down to see I was just to the left of the tool used to command the horse. The old mare stopped in her tracks when she saw this and gave me much less trouble from that day forward.

That sunny afternoon I surprised myself and learned that I might be capable of more than I ever expected- I just had to try.

The Great White: Tom Krzmarzick

Exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. On a crisp, clear day in early September, I took my 12’ stand-up paddleboard or sup to South Carlsbad State beach for a cruise session from the north end of the campgrounds to the south end near the Ponto jetties and back. The cruise is usually a two-hour journey. Typically, I will try to catch a few waves while paddling south and a few more on my return trip. The weather was one of those clear, brilliant days because of a weak Santa Ana. Visibility, looking down from the board through the crystal clear and a bright blue green water, was extremely clear.

As I paddled straight out from the shore, a family of four or five dolphins immediately greeted me, heading north. The dolphins, submerged under water on my left, swam underneath surfacing on the right-hand side of the board. The exhale breathing sounds from these animals felt amazingly close. After their visit, I turned or paddled south, as the dolphins swam northward. The brilliant beauty of the sky, clear water and visit from the dolphins energized me. I continued paddling south for another five minutes, when I glimpsed a shadow behind me approximately at the 5 o’clock position from my board, using the nose as the 12 o’clock position. As the shadow approached, I turned to my back right to get a better glimpse of what it was. After the greeting by the friendly dolphins, I was fully expecting more of them. I even started to say, “hello buddies,” when I realized the creature swimming closer to me was an eight to nine-foot great white shark! It swam in an arc, staying five feet below the surface and beneath me at approximately the 3 o’clock position of the board. It continued swimming in an arc direction and then turned right towards the horizon at the 1 o’clock position.

As the shark swam out toward the horizon, my initial thought was, “Holy Shit!! What do I do?” It exhilarated as much as it terrified me. My mental processing at that moment decided it was better strategy to continue on my way south as planned. I didn’t want to panic and abruptly turn around and go back to where I had entered the water, wondering what would happen if I fell off the sup while making those maneuvers. “Relax, you will not fall off this big board, you’ve been doing this for years,” I told myself, although I decided I would not try to catch any little waves since I had no leash for the board. I didn’t wear a leash because of the waves being so small, and I had planned on just a long cruise sup paddle.

I calmed down and continued my trip south, marveling at the beauty, power, and structure of the great white and how well built it was for the water. Its tail was vertical in the water allowing it to turn on a dime; It had a grayish black top and white underside, with a diamond-shaped powerful body. How effortless it swam! How powerful it looked in the water! I truly felt fortunate to experience seeing such a great white shark living in its own environment. It made an everlasting impression.

Walking to my car in the parking lot with the sup, I felt a surge of energy I can only attest to how fortunate to have witnessed these events. As I loaded the sup board on my car, dried off and got ready to go, I saw an older surfer hanging around his car. I couldn’t resist striking a conversation and telling him what I saw and witnessed. “Hey,” I said to him, “I just saw an eight to nine-foot great white shark. Have you ever seen them out there?”. He responded calmly with a short answer, “yep, they’re out there.” Indeed, they are!

Moments of Perfection

There are moments in life when we encounter, however briefly, something unexpected, beautiful, perfect, beyond description, in which we sense a larger beingness. We feel at the edge of a precipice transfixed, but connected to that larger sense of ourselves. I call these moments of perfection, wrapped in glory. Sometimes the overwhelming emotion can be positive but it need not be. It is, however, unforgettable. The following are my flash-bulb memories of some of those events in my life. I encourage anyone with such memories to share a short-version of them with me so that I can post on the blog.

Individuation

Although most of my life as a 3-year-old remains shrouded in mist, I vividly recall the day when I became a separate, distinct individual. Until then, I had no awareness of a separate me, only of an undifferentiated consciousness. That auspicious day, I recall wanting to play, but my 5-year-old sister Nora did not, and in that instant, shattered my world. It suddenly dawned on me, more a feeling than a conceptual understanding, that she and I were distinct, with different thoughts. It was, as I would later characterize it, a “crack in the cosmic egg of my existence.” Individuation is a normal process we all go through, but few remember. Psychologists call it the development of a theory of mind, referring to the ability to distinguish our self from others and to know others can think different thoughts. The unexpected and earth-shattering aware-feeling of becoming separate from those close to me produced a deep sadness in my young mind. It made me feel very alone in a large universe.

Going to the Moon

We were inseparable, doing everything together, including fighting like brothers. On a sunny day, when we were both four years old, we went to the moon. Hector lived next door and had become my best friend. I don’t recall how we chose our target, but the adventure did not seem beyond our childish imaginations. There was a small bed in the corridor that faced the backyard of my house, which we commandeered as our spaceship. On launch day, we sat side by side with me as pilot and Hector as co-pilot. Suddenly, the engines roared, and we were off. We took control of the ship and pointed it towards the silver silhouette in the sky. My eyes fixated on that silver moon and, ever so slowly, perceived us getting closer and closer. It seemed like the afternoon dragged on for hours as the size of our target grew bigger and bigger. I have never been able to see the “face” on the moon, but on that day I could see the craters on the surface as clearly as if only a few hundred feet above them. It was thrilling beyond words.

Finding My Way Home

I started undergraduate life at UCLA as a math major since I had done well in the subject in high school. But it quickly became apparent I did not know what I wanted to study, and switched to Engineering, then Premed, and Sociology. It did not help my confidence to be surrounded by kids much smarter than me. I struggled to get through freshman chemistry, earning a passing grade. In contrast, a friend got an ‘A’ even though he rarely studied because the material did not challenge him enough. I remember sitting side by side in class, feeling disheartened and depressed. Such feelings accompanied me to every class during that first fall and winter quarters. In spring, I enrolled in Introduction to Psychology and things took a different turn. That first day proved foreboding as I walked into a semi-circular auditorium holding 500 students, all talking at once. I settled down on a seat at the top of the auditorium, fortunate to have found one. For five minutes, I waited for the class to start. Then, a young, short-hair male with glasses and sandals, who I assumed to be the professor, approached the podium. The loud noise settled down from a roar to a murmur and then complete silence, as if a disk jockey had turned down the dial on loud music. Maybe it was the deep and mellow tenor of his voice or his charm, but soon enough, I lost track of everyone around me. Everyone literally disappeared, and I became mesmerized by the professor’s voice and stories. I had stopped thinking and just listened–totally fascinated by what he said. At the end of the class and while the auditorium emptied, I felt disoriented. What had just happened? After a few seconds, I experienced a warm feeling and a sense I had stumbled upon what had been missing. It felt like I had found my way home after being lost, and a sense of gratitude, excitement, and a budding awareness that I now knew what I needed to do. I would major in psychology.

Snow in Frankfurt

It was the weekend and time to head downtown, to an area called Sachsenhausen, a part of the old town with a mix of late-night bars, clubs, and restaurants. I had been in Frankfurt, Germany, stationed at Rhein-Main Air Force Base for only a few months. The old town was a special hangout for US airmen during our time off. The coldness of winter gripped me as I pulled my light jacket tighter while waiting for the bus. In Sachsenhausen, my friends and I gathered at the Drop-IN club where we danced with German fräuleins, drank, laughed, and relaxed from our weekly chores. Around midnight, l headed home by myself feeling happy and light-headed. I stepped off the bus stop to switch to the one headed to the air base and sat on the bench to wait. I knew it would only be a few minutes, given the punctual nature of German public transportation. As I sat there, alone on a quiet night, during the bewitching hour, it snowed. I had never experienced a snow fall and as I looked up at the sky, the most beautiful pattern of white particles against a dark sky descended on me as if in slow motion. It was mesmerizing and for a long moment, time stood still, as I sat there watching and feeling blessed by God.