The Perfect Moment

Ever since watching Spalding Grey's monologue, "Swimming to Cambodia" I've always kept a look out for those perfect moments in life. They exist on some ill defined emotional plane (perhaps a wikipedia entry is warranted), outside of logic or some conventional notion of happiness. Spalding's perfect moment was on a beach in Thailand up to his thighs in the surf and the sun touching down on the turquoise meridian of the earth.

One of mine came recently on a trip to New York City. Earlier in the day I had downloaded "Best of the Doors" into iTunes. I have been a fan of the Doors and Morrison's hedonistic transcendental rants since the early 80's but had not listed to them in a while.

I did some work on my flight then queued up my new purchase. As we flew toward the big apple I closed my eyes and let the music wash over me, letting pleasant memories associated with those songs resurface in a sort of auditory delicious tagging sense.

The last song in the collection is "The End." As we descended through the clouds on approach to LaGuardia this song began, "... this is the end, beautiful friend, the end...", we were circling low over Manhattan, near sunset, reflecting brightly off of the skyline and streaming through the airplane windows, almost blinding. For those ten minutes, the tumblers of life all fell into place and everything didn't have to make sense or have purpose. It just was.