moments

A thousand moments.
They're like a bag of tiny diamonds glittering in a black heart.
-- Inman in Cold Mountain

in a moment: a hint of a smile can turn into a wide grin, an observation can pave way for a new idea, a voice can falter, a memory can fade, a song can reverberate, a heart can die, a hope can be strengthened, opportunity can be lost, trust can be regained, love can grow, hate can be sowed, laughter can echo, tears can flow, life can be taken away, a kiss can be blown, axes can fall, a friendship can start, words can hurt, a miracle can happen, a dream can come true, a world can shake...

moments are brief, indefinite intervals of time. although brief, so much can happen while they last and there's no precise way of telling when they really end -- one just knows when they're up. they can be easily qualified, but to quantify them is another matter. making them count is one thing, counting them is another thing.

i could count my life in decades, in years, in months, in weeks, in hours, in minutes, in seconds, in milliseconds, even in microseconds or nanoseconds or picoseconds or femtoseconds... but i do not choose to do that. life's meanings would only be utterly lost in such an OC exercise. what are those numbers, what are those figures that represent how long i've lived if they can't tell how i've lived?

i choose to treasure the moments instead. it is true that i can't stop the sands of time from falling and neither can i stop the coming of the next second, but i can try to make the moments -- particularly the good ones -- last... in my head, in my heart.

a thousand heartwarming moments are treasures that all the money in the world can't buy, but i can have them. you can have them, too.