Dwell in the Now

“Home is where the hearts are” is a line from my Doctor Who fan-fiction Web series, Homesick, and a recurring theme in my life. It’s of specific importance this year.

I have faced a lot of changes this year, said a lot of goodbyes and fond farewells—in short, had a lot of endings to former beginnings. Thus, I’ve had to start over with new beginnings, new faces, places, and new circumstances. All of this has left me in an emotional whirlwind as I grasp for a place to land.

It has led me to personal and spiritual contemplationn. What is home? What is time? Does love transcend our notion of both?

I land in the place of now, holding dear to my heart the times of old as I continue my steps forward in this construct of time we have created. As I rest here, pondering my life and all the goings-on, the goals I need to set, the dreams I hope to acquire, I am once again in the place of wondering.

This summer my production company, Cafe-Girl Productions, Inc., begins its second round of filming our Doctor Who Web series, this time with new scripts to continue the storyline. (Stay tuned.) The notion of the doctor and all that he represents for us humans—such as the idea of traveling backward and forward in time, anywhere in space—stirs a longing within us. Who doesn’t feel that stirring deep within: a desire to travel back, explore the annals of history in real time, or just return to a simpler time in our own past or even rewrite a past-life occurrence?

Similarly, who doesn’t want to view the faraway future that they would thus never see? Who doesn’t want to have somewhat reckless adventures throughout space, answering the age-old question once and for all: Does life exist on another planet? Who doesn’t want a timeless friendship with a person who helps you find the saving and healing power within yourself, the courage to conquer your inner demons and survive?

But on this plane of existence, we are left with one reality: being here—that is, dwelling in the now. Simply that. We can choose to struggle against the passing of time, to try to speed things up, or to hold things fast. We can remain stagnant by continually looking back with longing. Or we can choose to take life for what it is.

Time moves in one direction here on Earth. The very seconds of our lives are gone after they have arrived. We cannot look back on the last second with longing when its disappeared as quickly as it has arrived. There is no Doctor or TARDIS or time machine to take us backward and forward, only our mind’s imagination. (A good and sometimes bad fact of our reality.)

I am left with the realization that the best way to live is to live in harmony with this moment, to dwell in the now. I can’t say that I have perfected it by any means. I still have moments when I look back, moments that I want to slip forward as soon as they have arrived, events in the near future I want to finalize today…but I make an active choice not to antagonize myself for this. It’s the reality of being a human being. We look back with longing, and we hope or worry over what’s to come—either over-romanticizing or over-exaggerating with tragedy. Since this is a fact of all human existence, I cannot beat myself too much over it (although even beating ourselves up over this tendency is a fact of human existence, too).

I recognize that truly being in this moment is embracing myself: every little idiosyncrasy, strength, weakness, warts and all. Every emotion and thought is what makes me human, what makes me real—and by living in a place of acceptance, I truly begin to dwell in the now. In this dwelling, we come home—not to a physical location, but the place within all of us, our hearts. Truly, home is where the hearts are.