Musings from Monday, 16th January 2006

With my back to a dark cloudy sky, I am sitting in the Indian fashion, waiting to meet you. Each time someone comes in the door, I feel the chilly air curling around my neck, defying my warm turquoise cashmere scarf.

Today is one of those days. I feel like I need to see the sun again, not just a cold wintry sun but the splendour of the summer sun, radiant, scorching. I need to soak in its rays, I need to stretch out on the warm sand by the beach, hearing the thunder of the waves on the shore, and to close my eyes against the unbearable brilliance. I want to feel the need once more of a cool breeze refreshing my body now and then when the heat becomes overwhelming.

What is it inside of us that makes us long for light, for beauty, for balmy evenings and quiet summer mornings? What is there inside of us that trembles at a once-forgotten strain of melody? What makes tears start in our eyes when music becomes so beautiful our heart aches? When beauty touches the very heartstrings of our being, something strange and misterious, yet sublime, happens. Without knowing, our soul catches a glimpse, a taste, of what Eden must have been at its original glory, of the delicious, pure and raw beauty and pleasure we were destined for. Of the beauty we lost at the Fall, but which we still, at times, can manage to grasp for an instant... only an instant. That is the sensation that we have then of a hazy memory of some far away something we can’t begin to put into words. We cling to it, savouring it while it lasts, and then it inevitably fades and slips beyond our grasp like the edge of the sun when it slips beyond the horizon.

And yet our heart is content... it waits, until another moment like this visits it again. Because, you know, you can’t look for it. It just comes, sometimes when you least expect it.