When you hear two voices singing in such complete harmony that your whole being responds to it and your soul soars. Your first time riding a roller coaster, when you're on top of the world, rushing through the sky, and everyone around you is screaming with the sheer pleasure of it. When something clicks in your brain, you finally get that math equation, and you know you'll ace the class. When you brush shoulders and a spark kindles. When you hold someone's hand for the first time, and a tingling rush of shaky adrenaline shoots through your body. When they squeeze you just a little tighter than usual in that hug. The first time saying 'i love you.' The feeling when the sunset is so perfect you could almost cry. When you buy a brand new dress, look in the mirror, and it's perfect. When time freezes as you laugh with your brother, and you want to trap the moment forever. A queer, achy sensation in your heart when you realize you can finally feel again. Finally playing a song on the piano as fast as you can, after weeks of perfecting it. Watching that beautiful person genuinely laugh, look over at you and smile, and laugh again. When you sleepily glance out the window as the sun rises, and the trees are covered in snow. When you jump through a puddle and your shoes get wet, but you don't even care. The first time you drive alone, and the windows are rolled down. A warm windy day, as the breezes whip around your face, and exhilaration as you feel the same energy of nature running through your veins.
Moments when cracks in this gray world appear, and something seeps through around the edges of our dark and misty landscape. Something's out there. Behind the dusty curtain of our world's stage. Some say we can never sweep it away and see what's behind. That these things I'm describing are only tricks of the light. But that's the point. They are tricks. And I want to see the real thing- what they really represent. What they're hinting at. And if you've ever felt even a moment of sheer, unfiltered contentment, you know that is what you're meant for. A place where the brief flash of beauty you glimpsed will last forever. You know you want it, you need it. So believe in it. It's more than a place. The parts of it you've seen- the parts scattered through the souls of our people, through the rhythm of nature, in the circle of life- I think they are messages. Letting us know what's ahead. Trying to show us that this is how it can be. No more tears, no more shame, only perfection. It seems almost wrong, and that we need the rain for a rainbow to appear. But again, that's just it. This is the rain. When the sun comes out, we'll know how to love it, because it will finally erase the holes inside us that we've been trying to fill all along, even if you won't admit it. Someday the clouds will melt away and the big, blue, sunlit sky will fill our eyes with glory and the rain we've endured while waiting for this moment will fade to dewdrops that sprinkle our faces and hair with the life of the gods. In the words of one ambassador, "End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it. See what? White shores, and beyond, a far green country, under a swift sunrise. Well, that isn't so bad. No. No, it isn't."