Moonrise in SonomaThere are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.
-from Li Young-Lee, "From Blossoms"
I had forgotten this: the feeling of so much concentrated bliss that it's almost hard to breathe, and nearly impossible to fathom, at least for a while, that anything could ever be wrong in the world. But now I remember.
We spent the day in Sonoma, S and I and his visiting friend, and for hours I was so happy I sometimes couldn't speak. Sitting overlooking the lake at Gundlach Bundschu in the bright sun of late afternoon with my eyes half-closed and S's arms around me; looking up from every sip of wine to see that beautiful and adoring face close to mine; watching out the window as we sped through the heartbreakingly pretty golden hour scenery along route 12, my hand on S's knee as he drove: I don't have adequate words to describe how these things made something in me lighten and expand so much that there was no room for anything other than untempered joy and amazement.
Those two can't last forever on their own, of course; back in the city, with night fallen, there were parking woes, an unexciting and overly expensive meal out, S reaching a saturation point after 5 straight days with his friend, and the annoying reappearance of the real world in the form of outstanding work tasks and bills to pay and planning to do for the week ahead. And, of course, there was our goodbye, utterly untenable despite being very temporary, which has left me listless and unmoored.
And yet, and yet: those hours of sunshine, brilliant skies, baisers volés, hands touching, free wine, effortless joy--they've left me feeling calmer and more whole than I have for much too long, and have reminded me that sometimes fate or good luck or good timing intervenes and kicks open the door that's kept you for months in a murky dimness, leaving you blinking, dazzled, and pleasantly dazed in the sudden onslaught of light.
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.
-from Li Young-Lee, "From Blossoms"
I had forgotten this: the feeling of so much concentrated bliss that it's almost hard to breathe, and nearly impossible to fathom, at least for a while, that anything could ever be wrong in the world. But now I remember.
We spent the day in Sonoma, S and I and his visiting friend, and for hours I was so happy I sometimes couldn't speak. Sitting overlooking the lake at Gundlach Bundschu in the bright sun of late afternoon with my eyes half-closed and S's arms around me; looking up from every sip of wine to see that beautiful and adoring face close to mine; watching out the window as we sped through the heartbreakingly pretty golden hour scenery along route 12, my hand on S's knee as he drove: I don't have adequate words to describe how these things made something in me lighten and expand so much that there was no room for anything other than untempered joy and amazement.
Those two can't last forever on their own, of course; back in the city, with night fallen, there were parking woes, an unexciting and overly expensive meal out, S reaching a saturation point after 5 straight days with his friend, and the annoying reappearance of the real world in the form of outstanding work tasks and bills to pay and planning to do for the week ahead. And, of course, there was our goodbye, utterly untenable despite being very temporary, which has left me listless and unmoored.
And yet, and yet: those hours of sunshine, brilliant skies, baisers volés, hands touching, free wine, effortless joy--they've left me feeling calmer and more whole than I have for much too long, and have reminded me that sometimes fate or good luck or good timing intervenes and kicks open the door that's kept you for months in a murky dimness, leaving you blinking, dazzled, and pleasantly dazed in the sudden onslaught of light.
