Sois Heureuse

18 juillet 2010 dimanche

I was happy again last night. Macbett, Eugène Ionesco’s absurd, grotesque, tragicomedic defiance of Shakespeare’s Macbeth had just come to its unsettling, yet perfectly appropriate end. It was 9:30, evening spectacles spattered across the city were coming to an end, and from invisible theaters hidden behind walls of stone and posters, faint cheering could be heard. Another curtain falling, another evening’s success.

It was refreshingly cool, if not chilly after another burning summer day in the south of France. The street was sparsely populated with pedestrians, and the couples clutching each other’s arms spoke softly in whispers as they made their way down the sidewalks, as though in reverence to the falling dusk. I was feeling confident, literary, and lovely, and I let the wind wrap around me like a lover who knows all of my curves and my crevices.

Walking down the sidewalk, I contemplated feeling lonely. I thought of the deep, black expanse of the Atlantic, yawning between my friends and family and me, of the bronzing wheat fields of Ohio, of the waving stalks of sweet corn pushing tassels and saluting the hazy afternoon sky while night was already imminent in France. I had no lover, no partner with which I could saunter down the street arm in arm, or watch the sunset as the sun dipped into the Rhône, or sip a glass of wine and discuss lofty, intellectual subjects. No one would kiss me good night, and I would sleep alone in a bed big enough for two.

Blinking in the imposing darkness, trying to assure oneself of existence with the simple affirmation of sight, it is easy to feel alone, lonely, melancholy. But last night wasn’t a night for disparaging sentiments. The street smelled like lavender and Provençal spices, and when I turned the corner, the great ferris wheel emerged from behind the ramparts, gleaming in metallic shades of white gold and silver as the sun coquettishly donned its colors to the west. No, melancholy had no place in an evening such as this.

Happiness cannot be held and kept like sorrow can, which like a heavy stone wears holes in our pockets as soon as we pick it up. Happiness slips through our fingers as we cup it to our parched lips to drink. And that, perhaps, is the most painful of all: watching happiness slither away. A half-melted ice cream cone splattered on the sidewalk. A brightly colored balloon stuck in the highest branches of a tree. We’re left with sticky fingers and outstretched hands, and we can do nothing but remember. And in that remembering, smile.