beauty

I need to bring something beautiful into this world. Right now.

1. Today the rays of the sun broke the waves of the ocean in way that made it look not like water, but instead like a divine treasury, a golden irridescence of a transcendent loveliness.

2. We took Sarah, David, and Jeffrie to a fair. Yes, like in the movie Big. There is something almost enchanting about fairs, at least for me. Even the really sketchy ones you can see from I-45...I drive by them and am weirdly enticed by the lights, the way the yellows and reds pierce the night sky. I can't quite pinpoint it exactly but I suppose it's the idea that if there is a carnival in town, the day inherently holds an adventure. It's this place that draws in families, lovers, loners, and connects them by bringing out an anticipation and excitement and curiosity we are too often too grown-up to admit that we harbor. Anyway, so Jeffrie was elated that we were going. The whole way there he sat on Naseem's lap with his head out of the window of the van; I wondered if when the wind hit his face he felt somehow in own little toddler way that he was a part of everything which we passed, the way I feel when I roll the windows down and let the wind race against my fingertips. When we arrived, he was bouncing up and down and laughing, and I saw true joy. It was so beautiful and pure.

3. Naseem and I rode a ferris wheel in a third world country. It was another one of those magic fair moments...I am trying not to sound too cheesy but really. It was so much more priceless than you can imagine. The ferris wheel was all rickety and rusty and made all these loud, unsettling noises but it went fast, like faster than a normal American ferris wheel. Incidentally, those are now wicked lame in comparison, probably because they are actually "safe." Naseem and I were already giddy from being a little nervous (laugh all you want, but seriously, you should have seen this piece of crap) and so as the ride started, as it set itself into a whir of motion, faster and faster, we were laughing so hard and gripping the bar across our laps, while trying not lean against the backs of our seats because they were a bit disconnected from the actual seat itself. We looked down and saw Brandon and Debra, and Brandon was smiling and they were laughing together. There it was again: joy. We shouted at them, laughing too, right along with them, we called their names but they never heard us. It didn't matter. We were all joined together. Then Naseem called out look, and I turned around, and it was Gardena. She was smiling too and she waved at us, and then we were all off again, as the rickety old machine sent us flying, flying over the fairgrounds. It was a connection: I've mentioned it before but it was the feeling of being separate people, coupled in pairs in these trashy little cars, rusty with the paint peeling, but all bound together by something much more infinite. We loomed over Roatan and saw the dark jungle unfolding beneath and to the sides of us and we knew that just on the other side of this road was the ocean and then I was overcome by a feeling of holiness and a feeling of love so immanent that I could wrap it around me, and around Debra and Naseem and Brandon and Gardena.

So that's it. Three beautiful things tonight.

Peace,
Alison