Once Forever

 (image source)

I spent the evening rewatching the film Once with Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova.  It put me in mind of a universal truth and of its equally true opposite.  Nothing lasts.  Everything passes away.  At the moment of perfection, the unraveling has begun.  We cannot continue breathing-in forever, no matter how good it feels to take in the air. Eventually, very soon, we must allow our lungs to release.  Yet when I was younger, and more recently but less regularly, I had the experience of stepping into a moment as into the frame of a photograph, of stepping not only into the scene but into my body, gesture, knowledge and emotions with the assurance of a dancer precisely hitting her mark.  I knew that, after I felt myself moving on, the moment would remain forever as it was.  This knowledge invested even the horrifying moments, and the awkward and confusing ones, with a flawless radiance.  Every breath was inexpressibly satisfying but sad.  Made up of longing and fulfillment and longing again, each was full.  Each was endless.  Nothing passes away.  Ever.

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