The Rangoon Racquet Club

The Rangoon Racquet Club was a piano bar in the Holiday Inn in Norwalk CT.  When I was a young drinking man, my lovely girlfriend I and would spend Saturday nights there drinking Jack on the rocks and Rum & Cokes (respectively). We listened to Clarence bang out contemporary classics on his piano with the occasional accompanying singer. It’s a long-held and cherished memory of my young life.

There are many, many memories, some happy like this one, and some heartbreaking. I would never wish any of these away. They shaped and molded me to be the man I am still becoming today. I learned life the hard way. I have loved and desperately hurt in my learning about love itself. Later, when I thought I had lived enough and learned enough, I had stood at the edge of a cliff overlooking the crashing Atlantic and cried out to God ‘Do what you wish of me!’  I stumbled backward as the wind hit me and knocked me back.

It was a turning point.

What does this all have to do with Mindfulness? After the Turning Point, I became acutely aware of events, things and people put before me in my life. I learned that each and every event had (and has) a deeper meaning than what I understood in the moment. I learned not to fear what was put before me, I learned to look deeply at what was occurring in my life and then make a choice how to handle it. Sometimes the deep look happened after the event ended, sometimes right in the middle of it.

I began to look at the significant moments. Each came with a true and simple meaning. Much of this is Mindfulness in its essence. And even today, I still forget to breathe, and then remember. Today I forget to listen to my body and it complains and I do something. The difference today is that I know what I need to do. Today, I look for what I need and not what I want. Moments like the evenings spent at The Rangoon Racquet Club will still happen in different places, with different people. And I will cherish and continue to be mindful of the moment, making it a deep and brilliant picture in my mind and in my heart.