Every, every minute.

My bro wrote a great blog entry on his myspace page this Saturday. My grandpa Boring just turned 88 last weekend. He is slowly dying from Alzheimer's.

Thinking about Grandad, I also get kinda scared about my own future. What is it like to have your brain slowly deteriorate on you? What is it like to slowly realize that everyone in your family hasn't gone crazy - it's actually you? Can you even really realize anything?

It's all stages of life, right? The crazy problem with us as humans is that we seldom appreciate the moment we are in while it's happening until it has passed us by. Our American culture seems to revere our 20s - that's where most of the heros of our movies and TV shows fall. And yet in our 20s we wish we were further along in our careers, wish we could find Mr./Mrs. Right...

One of my favorite stage plays is "Our Town" by Thornton Wilder. The play is way overdone by high schools and community theatre. It's relatively cheap to do because it doesn't require much in the way of stage dressing. One of the clear focuses of the play is the preciousness of life in every instant.

I've been thinking of that play lately. The artistic director of the Alley is directing it for some other theatre this Fall, I believe. Anyway, I am reminded how we wander through life waiting for the "good times" to come in the future (or dreading the "bad times" to come). Or we relive or worry about times past. So little of our time is actually spent appreciating and enjoying the present. And really, future and past are not real. Only the present moment has any reality.

I was listening to one of my favorite Christian pontificators, Tony Campolo, as he was discussing death and dying. He tells the story of a man sentenced to die under some oppressive regime. That morning as he was eating his last meal, he savored every bite like he had never eaten before in his life. As he was led out into the courtyard to face the firing squad, he felt the sun shine on his cheek. Everything seemed more clearly defined and crisp. When they pulled their triggers, they realized that all the guns had been loaded with blanks. He survived that day, but he had a new realization of the preciousness of life. On a completely different note, the regime he was under sure had some sick bastards running things.

Regardless of how things are, life is a precious thing. Right now as I write this, I'm smoking a pipe out on the back balcony of the Alley Theatre in downtown Houston on a glorious sunny day. I'll be leaving the Alley at the end of the month to take a job elsewhere and these times - taking smoke breaks with my buddy Mike - will be at an end. Right now I'm enjoying the moment. Life is good. It's all good.

Todd