Eager green leaves

every beautiful song makes me think of growing old and dying. Because every beautiful song makes me think of beauty. And every beautiful song ends. That's why I'm a sucker for time travel. that's why I'm in such a hurry to slow down and cherish every moment. I want each instance of life to last a lifetime. I want every moment to last forever, especially the beautiful ones. I want those to last, at minimum, past my life.  

I remember walking along a sidewalk at night in Chicago on a warm night last winter. Strings of white christmas lights were strung about the bushes and fences and porch railings of the houses I passed, little splatters of gentle photons laid one by one, draped with deliberate haphazardness... the best kind of order, the kind that works no matter what.

I walked past these lights and my eyes were open. Open. OPEN. I SAW the light, ingested each ray of photons. In any other scene I was just a cloud-headed passerby on his way somewhere with a brain full of futures and only one past but on this night I was neither of those; I was in the moment, I was ingesting the scene around me like a canvas swallowing paint. It wasn't one shade or hue that struck me, it was the whole of humanity expressed in one simple act: let's all enjoy these lights. Life is nice, existence is good, love is real--

I was a participant.

When I was breaking up with my girlfriend two years ago I told her of a similar experience. We were both crying. I told her that I had only two memories of being happy and I described a time when I was driving on Seeley street in Chicago on a beautiful spring day, warm but not too, windy but not too, sunny but too much in just the not too much way... that kind of day, hot but fucking perfect. Everything glowed at the right frequency, and I told her how I marveled at the existence flourishing around me, at the glint off the  and ready, the rigid insistence and wonderful organization of houses and cars and people being people, the fresh eager leaves that bounced clean green light at my eyes like a trillion winking lovers. I remember remembering to breathe at the beauty of light and the joy of breathe and the privilege of wind and existence. Something was lining up and I happened to be there. I was happy because I was somehow unconstrained by thought, as if my existence was out to play with pure reality, a dog digging a hole, a cat stretching her back, a man loving life.

My butt leaned on one counter, hers on another and I told her how mysteriously happy I was for those few minutes that day and she lamented that she wasn't included in the ledger. Not my intention, of course, but my breakup bruise deepened as it provoked more worthy tears from her beautiful eyes. My memory of joy didn't involve her and though I didn't understand why I understood why it hurt. What a shitty thing to tell someone, I realize. I got it. I got her. In that moment I understood being not gotten. Because I've understood being gotten. And getting someone. And being not gotten. And... well, getting you. I always understood that. From the instant I typed that first letter. I got you.

I guess I'm saying it's just good. It's all just good. And just. And good. Beauty is there and it will always be appreciated. Gotten. Maybe forgotten. But there. Sometimes it's in the past. Or the now. We're all twinkling lights strung on a string on a branch or a fence. We radiate light and love and are there for passing souls to pause and take measure, photons out.

Always.

Always spreading out.