Weekend Fuel #29: The Moment

What's a Weekend Inspiration? It's doing what we never seem to have time for during the week. Laying on the grass in the sun. Exploring a new neighborhood. Riding a train with no destination in mind. Trying a new recipe with friends. For this long holiday weekend, I'm looking forward to doing all that. And more. Or less.Growing up, I remember long summer days that stretched out before us with no plans but to walk to a friend's house and then walk to another friend's house, and then ... who knows? We'd sit in front of the stereo and listen to a new song (or an old one for the 100th time), pick up a camera and make a goofy film or scramble some eggs at midnight just because that sounded good.I see now how sweet those days of no agenda were. Unfettered time allowed us to be present and let the moment reveal itself.While we have small glimpses of this kind of day here and there now, art can take us out of our agendas quickly, through memory or simply by refreshing our ways of seeing.For example, these flower explosions by German photographer Martin Klimas at first seem simple. Perhaps too pretty? But the process by which they are made is everything. Flowers which would have died naturally yet slowly from decay, are halted suddenly in their finest moment. Klimas freezes them in time (literally) by soaking them in liquid nitrogen until the petals are as brittle as eggshells and then blasts from behind with an air gun. The result is a flower caught in a dazzling display of glory. In its moment.We never know how much time we have. But when we live in the present, it will be enough.