November 9, 2016 and September 1, 1939

At this time, I can say only that I love you all.

I have written for you some singular moments in a life that ask nothing of you except to fall into them for a heartbeat such that you remember, even for a sentence, what joy feels like.

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Little particles drifting through sunlight that filters in through rafters and windowpanes in still, quiet rooms.

Two people laughing until they can’t breathe.

The smell of summer rain on dusty pavement, small wet circles pattering against asphalt and everything now green.

Families on decks outside in cold afternoon sun, drinking wine and martinis and beer on the coast in winter.

Perfect drops of dew on tiny clover leaves before morning fog clears.

Realizing you’re in love with the person in front of you.

Endless stretches of white surf and sand, blinding and brilliant in sun that dances across foam and ripples over crests before tumbling underneath.

The smell of laundry.

Little lights strung up across streets during the holidays, twinkling in trees that border sidewalks and dripping like icicles between lampposts that glow warmly against packed storefronts.

Crisp, new sheets on clean skin after a hot shower.

Winding turns up a sunset mountain with the top down, warm dusk filling the car and crowning peaks and tree tops.

Untouched powder sparkling on sweeping, snow-covered slopes on a blue bird day.

A perfect tart with layers of sliced apple arranged in a glazed spiral inside trimmed golden crust, adorned in the center with small cranberries.

Brisk air whipping through hair and brushing faces with salt kisses and ocean spray on the deck of a boat cresting grey, choppy waters.

The beginnings of a relationship: the first text exchanges, the first meetings, the first inside jokes, drinks, confessions, touches, even the first fights that make people feel closer because it’s part of really getting to know each other.

The smell of eggs and bacon and black coffee on a December morning.

Eucalyptus and brush and whispering leaves surrounding butterflies that block out the sky in little dots of orange and brown and flutter in the wind like sheets of tissue paper, dancing around each other and settling on trees in fantastically large clumps.

Hugging someone.

A silent, empty street and warm hands around steaming coffee as a golden dawn breaks over building edges and birds that alight on trees against a never-ending expanse of sky; the sense that everything will begin again.

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To quote the end of one of my favorite poems:

All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die. Defenseless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.

—"September 1, 1939" by W.H. Auden