Only an instant

"Mama, did you hear us sing?"
I was resting upstairs after an afternoon trip to the ER found acute bronchitis, probably viral, but with your history, here's a script for antibiotics anyway. Resting, may I add, on doctor's orders, as discharge papers stated quite clearly that I should get plenty of rest and extra fluids. And yes, I could hear them sing. I would have to be deaf not to. JD and Monkey pulled out the karaoke machine, complete with two microphones, and have been singing, very well and in two languages, for at least thirty minutes at that point. I knew for a fact that Monkey didn't know all the words to all the songs they sang, so the thing I found most remarkable from the vantage point of my bed upstairs was that she was reading the words on the screen fast enough to sing correctly. When I came downstairs with Monkey, my mom, visiting for the weekend, suggested that I could supplement family income considerably by taping a session just like that and selling it to the grandparents at a dollar a song.

Just then JD declared that he was going to sing just one more, and pack it up. I always loved the song he picked. It's a little sappy, but the melody is nice, and the sentiment, while not something I always feel in my bones, seems somehow true in the way that while it may not be your truth, not all the time, you recognize as a truth worth knowing is out there. In my youth it seemed romantic (doesn't everything?), a call to bravery and valiance, because really, can you afford to waste your instant on anything else? Now it just seems comforting in the way that allowed me yesterday afternoon to take in and imprint in myself the moment- JD singing, me dancing with Monkey, and my mom watching-- as it was happening, poignant, at least to me, in both what was there and who was missing. Comforting also in the way that assured me many have been where I am, and, sadly, many will be still, in the way that connected our moments, our instants, through time and space.

I may have been overthinking this, or overemoting, or oversomething, but for the next nearly 24 hours I was all about translating the song. (I started by looking for a translation on the internets, and found one, but didn't like it.) Here it is*, probably not perfect, but with some lines I am very happy with, and apparently good enough that I am no longer obsessively looking for just the right sentence structure and just the right rhyme.

Ephemeral shades make up world ever turbulent,
Future and past, with one moment inside.
Hold on to it, to this instant of in-between
For that is the thing that we know as life.

Eternal peace will not gladden my heart at all
Eternal peace onto monuments shines,
Yet for a star that lost grip and, in shooting, falls
There's only an instant, but an instant that blinds.

Let this blue world onward fly through millennia
We may not always agree on the route.
What do I risk? What's the prize I am cherishing?
Only an instant, of that there's no doubt.

What still awaits me? What joys and what sorrows?
Future and past, with one moment inside.
Hold on to it, to this instant we borrow
For that is the thing that we know as life.

Monkey wanted to dance, for the song is slow-ish, and so we danced, me doing the male partner thing, twirling, and dipping, and pulling her in, her giggling, JD singing, me thinking about the instants of our lives, remembering wistfully the overwhelming happiness I felt when I was doing something like this, or just snuggling, with Monkey while I was carrying A-- the happiness of knowing I have my children with me, and knowing that I can't feel that now, can never feel that again, not fully. And yet, feeling joy, some joy, for being in that moment.

The song ended and my coughing began, because apparently even a slowish dance is too much when you have bronchitis.



*If you speak the Old Country language, and know this song, I would love to hear your honest opinion on this version. No offense will be taken, I promise.