Optimistic

For a few days there, I was feeling uncharacteristically optimistic.

Once in a while you can spend time with someone, and even a small moment feels like a happy little pod zipped up against all the other stuff that's going on. The event itself is insignificant and probably mundane--driving on some errand, eating lunch, making toast.

The lasting impression comes from being at ease with the other person. You think:

There's nowhere else I want to be right now.

This is good.

I could get used to this.

I can't wait to do this again.

It's nice, too, when you get the sense maybe, just maybe, the other person is thinking the same.

Whether or not he/she is--and how can one ever tell, really--it's heartening just to have an easy moment with someone. Every day is filled with people and their agendas, conscious and unconscious. We spend an awful lot of time trying to get each other to do our own bidding. There's nothing more comforting than sharing some rest with another person.

And if all of this sounds trite and simplistic, maybe that's because it's deceptively simple. I've been trying to figure out how to explain it for a while, and I'd say we're skirting the ineffable here.