[Niagara Falls during a rare winter when it froze. This is probably 1907 or so. Photo: Google search.]

The most beautiful moments always seemed to accelerate and slip beyond one’s grasp just when you want to hold onto them for as long as possible.

~~E. A. Bucchianeri

But meanwhile, time flies; it flies never to be retained.

~~Virgil

Time flies like the wind. Fruit flies like bananas.

~~Classic bathroom wall graffiti

Life is full of sweet moments. If one is lucky, we can manage our lives to stay in that sweet moment for more than a fleeting second.

I jotted down a few of my memories that came and went with the rapidity of a streak of lighting. My short list is by no means complete. That would take more space that this…

~~The maple trees in Autumn, against a cobalt blue sky. I was hiking in the High Peaks of the Adirondacks. It was in the 1960s. My brother Chris was either a mile ahead of me, or he was a mile behind. Not unusual as we both liked to hike, lost in our thoughts, and letting our minds take us…someplace. I looked up at the stark contrast between the bright almost electric yellow of maple leaves with the deep blue sky beyond.

~~The first kiss that wasn’t given by a relative, but by someone who stood near. That moment when we became a tiny bit less of a child and a tiny bit more of an adult.

~~The sight of the fog rising slowly from the Susquehanna on a crisp day in October. On the way to school, walking up Front Street and smelling the wet leaves and seeing the creeping fog being burned away by the morning sun.

~~Sitting in a pew in the Wimborne Minster in Dorset. It was Christmas, 1984. The school choir was singing carols and hymns at the holiday gathering of the school where I was an exchange teacher. It was all so pure and so timely.

~~I was sick with some childhood bug. I was crying and not understanding why I hurt so much. I was in my mother’s arms. She rocked me to sleep.

~~Seeing my daughter and my son moments after they were born. With Brian, I saw the whole show. He was tiny and red and very wet. After his mother was attended to, the doctor came over to me. I was standing at the window staring at the parking lot of the Stamford General Hospital. “So, what did you think?” she asked. I could not find the words, but I could feel the tears streaming down my cheeks.

For some experiences, there are no words.

Think of what some of those moments are for you. Hopefully, many of those special times will be repeated. But too often, they will fly away like a lost sparrow.

When I think of these things I usually think of rivers. Our moments, our thoughts, our experiences, are like the upturned oak or maple leaf, drifting like a hand-sized ark, carrying those momentary flashes of joy, sorrow, pain and absolute happiness. And they disappear, down stream, around the bend or over the falls.

Perhaps all those people standing on the ice and snow banks (in the lead photo) are glad the temperature is low enough to freeze one of the greatest waterfalls in the world.

We’d like time to stop flowing for a moment, just a moment, so we can catch our breath to smell, to see, to feel all those seconds one more time.