everything really was beautiful and nothing really hurt

Vonnegut speaks in the simplest of terms sometimes. In this beautiful easy way to read and feel and see. And I've read that line (everything was beautiful and nothing hurt) about a dozen times but today I think I finally GET it. Maybe it was the setting in which I was reading that line again. Or just thinking about my past few years and how it is applicable to specific places and dates.

This past week. Dark Washington night, Pacific coast, no cell phone reception, hoodie and beanie on riding bikes withe one of my best friends through low lit streets. The cold air cutting us on a June night. The low roar of a nearby ocean just over the cliff. Weaving in and out of unfamiliar streets. Smiling. Nothing behind us or nothing ahead of us.

Another instance. Sitting on the beach years ago. Comfort food bought to ease some pain. Blanket. Sunrise dusted by clouds. low lapping of a gulf shore. Body weight rested on elbows. Nothing except that moment. No one existed but us.

Another time: Sitting at the coffee house today, clouds so high strung up on the thinnest threads like cotton balls drifting. The trees blew slightly. A girl next to me smelled like someone I once knew. A special needs son and his older mother walking by. He blows on a hollow pen that makes a noise like I've heard on the World Cup. She holds his hand. He shuffles his feet. I wonder if everything is beautiful and nothing hurts for her. How she manages. What resolve and love she has. Their simplicity of love.

Is everything really beautiful and can nothing really hurt? I suppose so. I suppose there are times as I've mentioned above where everything seems in that instant and good. That that one moment is how eternity could be spent. The best place ever if even for just a second. And I have to remember those times when they aren't there anymore, like when a stewardess flips out over turbulence or low fuel in an airplane forces you to land. Or when I'm terrified. Or when anything can shake me. Even the strongest of us have our weak moments. And I suppose it's those moments that refine us. Either way I know I have these moments to pull from, to remember and focus on when the world is falling apart like puzzle pieces, one at a time. And the ends don't match up, don't ever seem to match up. And nothing makes sense anymore.

But those moments do. Like riding borrowed bicycles at night with a dear friend, under barely visible lamp light, riding towards the Pacific Ocean in a place a thousand miles away. And all you have is the air and the heat of a single beating heart and a smile that says everything is beautiful and nothing hurt.

freight train leaving town

I was looking through some photos of a friend of mine the other day, and in between pictures of flowers and little people smiling I saw a strange structure that did not make sense to me, some other world device that is not from here. And I still don't know what it is, don't wanna know. I like the mystery of something unexplained but useful for people I'll never meet, never know, never love, never hate. Just strangers on the other side.

Same person and I were talking later and I asked them what they saw over there that was beautiful that day, and they said they saw children in costumes pouring out of the door of their school because it was the last day of school. And the children ran with lunchpales and capes and papers in reckless abandon, running to parent's arms and bicycles and cars driven and parked on the wrong side of the road. And I asked:

"how does that make you feel?"

Response:

"like maybe we aren't so different after all."

I love that laughter everywhere sounds the same, same noises coming out of our bodies. This universal understanding of happy or funny. A smile is a smile. Body language or gestures are pretty constant everywhere. That gives me the oddest peace, that maybe I am not alone. That somewhere someone I can't understand or don't know can shrug their shoulders or laugh at something and at that moment we have bonded on a level deeper than language or culture. Some old balefire stirred up in us, deep inside, coals warmed by the thought of another stranger getting us.

I keep my distance, naturally. It's what we've been taught to do. Build the walls, fortify yourself and everything you hold dear. Close the curtains, turn off the lights, let the bandits pass you by. Live another day. But there's no use of living like that, alone and in the dark, shaky hands and pounding hearts. It's hard, no one ever said it would be easy. But to take that risk of letting someone in... I don't know how many more times I can do it before it breaks me. Too late now though, ain't ever been much of one to give up or quit. Suppose I shouldn't start now. You can't teach an old dog new trick, people don't change; well, they rarely change. Actually, maybe they do change, but not become better, just become comfortable with you and me and everyone else and get tired of acting.

That's why all those Hollywood folk get paid so much money. It's not easy being in makeup all morning and acting like someone you aren't all day.

But here, in the real world, when those supposed movie moments happen to us, big scenes, things slow down, we look around and people walk in time to the music you listen to, and its nothing but gorgeous dressed up people and everything feels like something important, no one yells "cut!" and we don't walk off the set and into our trailers and we don't live in mansions or fly in private jets or anything really. We just take another breath, a heart beats amazingly one more time, and every scene around us bleeds into each other.

I don't know why I wrote this. Maybe I am just reaching out to someone who won't be my friend anymore who I will see soon without a doubt. Maybe it's to cry out in the only way I know how. Maybe it's therapy. Maybe it's heaven. Maybe it's hell.