Stop. Relax your shoulders, close your eyes, breathe deeply. Listen to the silence. When your mind is a little calmed, watch a man sit, shirtless at the piano, playing a tune exquisitely for 3 minutes precisely. Really listen. Hear the gaps filled with residual resonance, hear the bass tones, the echoes, and the slight creak of bare feet on an old wooden floor.
I picture moments from my life. A warm, sunny, salty afternoon on a beach. The swish and perfect, vibrating click of a well-struck golf ball, rushing away to land on a stripe-mown fairway amongst Scots pine trees. A walk through dappled sunshine in woodland and exquisitely-coiffed gardens full of birdsong near a red castle. Sitting on a hillside, watching the bees and insects buzzing around on their never-ending little missions and talking with my love of future plans. Watching her beaming face in the candlelight of an historic chapel. Driving over the crest of a hill on an empty road and the view opening up in front of us, with a bright orange sun being swallowed by a miles-long rain squall in the distance.
Walking along the road on which we lived in summer rain: smelling warm tarmac covered in running water. Accepting that there’s no way I’d stay dry and succumbing to the fact that it doesn’t really matter. Sitting in a living room listening to family, eating biscuits and drinking tea, and watching my parents smiling together. Car snoozes on the way home with orange streetlights flickering on my eyelids.
Sitting on a park bench surrounded by rose bushes and watching a child bounce past on a pogo stick. Standing in front of a city view as dusk arrived and watching all of the myriad streetlights turn on at the same moment. Walking along a winter path and seeing the faintest wisp of snow spiralling upwards for a moment. Walking along the same path in early autumn, hearing children a mile away splashing in the lake and seeing vintners sitting together on a stone wall, sharing a bottle of wine which a whole season’s effort took to make.
This is life. This is what I work for, what I strive for, and the beauty which I see all around me almost every day. I see the world through rose-tinted glass, which obscures the bullshit which tries to obscure the beauty of life. I will not let it, though, because life is short and so, so beautiful so much of the time if you truly pay attention.
Lead video: Comptine d’un autre été, l’après-midi (reimagined) played by Andrea Vanzo.
