Unaccountable happiness

I woke up this morning with the promise of the first snow inside my chest. My heart is light. I can’t stop smiling. It’s just the perfection of it, really. The fragile, enchanting detail of a cold, gray morning dissipating into blue skies and smooth stones. Of watching it unfurl in my hand. Today is worn shiny, and inlaid with years of mindless daydreams. Can you feel it?

Every salvaged scrap is potent and magical. I’m actually savoring right now. Soaking up a wistful blend of chamomile and sandalwood, letting it sink into my subconscious. It’s so unlike me. And yet …

I’m in the woods, surrounded by the birth of winter. A fresh dressing of ice decorates the pines and crunches under my feet. I smell the balsam as though it’s the first time all over.

Here’s what matters: Without any particular evidence, but with certainty, everything – everything – is right.

Those barely perceptible fissures in the smooth surface don’t bother me today. Cigarette in hand, I sit in the snow with the dog, looking up without greed. Right now, I refuse to fix what is broken.

Today is the kind of buoyant day that encourages extravagance. I am pathetically, almost tearfully, grateful. And determined to burn each moment in my mind before it shrivels up and blows away like strands of smoke.

Plots and ambitions can wait until tomorrow. Today, I promise to be a normal, sane, non-horrible human. And I am resolute to ruin his perfectly good sulk – with two words and no shirt.

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