TALES FROM THE BARSTOOL
By: Clint Lien

Moments

Recently I was in Cuba and I had the pleasure of sharing something with my friends. We were at the home of a musician named Elio Reve. Elio is a practitioner of Santeria, the popular African religion of many Cubans. He walked us through a bizarre (by western standards) ritual that paid homage to his personal God. I won't go into the details of the ritual, but what I got to thinking about later, as I was flying off the island, was the realization during the ceremony that I would never forget it. I knew as I stood there watching, that short of some degenerative brain disease rendering me an idiot or a severe blow to the noggin, I would always remember that moment.

The next day I was sitting at a favorite L.A. haunt of mine and reflecting more on that moment. As I sat there pondering, it occurred to me that when I reminisce about the past, as I often do, what I'm really doing is reliving moments - playing them over in my mind and smiling at the show. My life is a series of moments, good and bad, that are connected by white noise. Egocentric being that I am, I made the assumption that everyone's life must be so. What does it mean and what are the practical applications of this little epiphany? Could I somehow take this knowledge and use it to increase the good moments, decrease the bad ones and do away with the white noise? Isn't awareness the first step to overcoming a problem? Was it a problem? The answer to that was easy. Yes, it most certainly was a problem. There are too many bad moments cluttering up my library of memories and too much space between the good moments. The first step to a better life was taken. Well begun is half done. I was off.

So now what? I would deal with this in a purely analytical fashion. First I would examine a short list of great past moments and then I would do the same for a list of tremendously bad ones. I would look at their origins and the decisions I made that led to them. I'd write it all down. By the time I finished I'd have a book. With a little editing I could have it published and make millions of dollars. I'd buy a house on the beach. Women would love me. Men would desire my company just to hear the jewels of wisdom that would spring from my lips. Yes, life would simply be one long series of good moments. I was scribbling this all down when a voice to my left cut into my frenzied scratching. I looked up. A pretty woman sitting by herself was smiling at me.

"What was that?" I asked.

"What are you writing?" She repeated.

"The secrets to life." I answered impatiently.

She nodded with a smile.

I returned the smile and bent back to my work. The ink flowed, but the pretty woman's smile was distracting me. Maybe I should set aside the pen for a moment and investigate that smile further. In fact, I decided, I would do just that - after a few more lines. A few more became a few more, but still the smile haunted me and so finally I pocketed my pen and turned to face the woman.

She was gone and I went home alone.

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