Seized by the moment
I swear to God, if I get out of this, I’m marrying that man.
Maybe it’s that I thought he was boring. I don’t know. I’m the socialite; he’s the wallflower. My weekends are busy enjoying life, and he likes his tame and uneventful. Even our engagement was mild, popping the question on a hike out at Muir Woods. It was sweet, but it was also very…quiet. So I don’t blame myself for sometimes wanting more excitement in my life than him and his bird-watching hobby.
Of course, that gets to all be terribly ironic now. I can’t move, and looking up, I just get to watch the crows circle overhead.
“Hit-and-run” isn’t as much fun as it might sound, at least from my end of it. One minute I’m on an evening run on Petaluma Hill to clear my head while I mull over things with Thomas, and suddenly in the next I’m motionless on the roadside, forced to do nothing but stare up at the darkening sky and think.
The birds don’t even need to beat their wings, but once in every while. They go smoothly around in their same circle, twitching them occasionally against the breeze, so they almost start to resemble some slow-moving, macabre clockwork.
It’s spellbinding, really, like I’m being hypnotized first before they descend.
Though still, there remains a silver lining in any situation. And it is funny, the things you remember when you’re forced into a little quiet. I don’t remember exactly who said it, my Aunt Linda maybe. Whoever it was said being happy isn’t the burst of excitement you feel in a moment; it’s about those small, consistent drips of joy over time.
I feel several sensations touch my mind, sort of like droplets of different inks into a water glass, each one webbing and staining the liquid with its own color for a moment before blending together.
The first is the security of a strong hand lacing its fingers between my own and holding firmly. The next is the smell of a ripe tomato being cut to garnish the same old omelet that gets lovingly made every Saturday. One after that is the sound of an earnest, honest laugh at one of our dumb jokes.
“There is no music in war, only the movies. And love is the same.”
There’s an earnestness to love that’s quiet.
You know, I’ve heard of “terminal lucidity” before, and I hope that’s not what this is. Just as the sun’s setting, too. But the light, rainbow sherbert-colored clouds sure are pretty.
And I hope the flashing blue and red lights aren’t just my imagination.
