Shelter

There are a lot of terrible things in the world. It's easy to lose oneself in chaos and despair.

But now and then I'm reminded that, for all of the pain and darkness, there are beautiful things too. Not things. People. Moments. Blips in time that are so exquisite that they can make one forget, for a time, about everything else. So powerful are they that they can melt the heart and bring light into the deepest, loneliest places of one's soul - places we dare not venture within ourselves until the path is illuminated from without. For just a little while the world could not be any more perfect.

But always it fades. Always that thing that brought us so much joy grows dark and cold and disappears into the nothingness from which it seemed to come. We are left again in a cold, uncaring world. Only the memory of that blissful moment remains to keep us warm as the long night sets in. And I am left to wonder why. Why should it be that such a beautiful thing cannot last - if not eternal, at least then a single lifetime? Is that so much to ask from a Universe so large and mysterious?

Perhaps these moments are like a spring flowers, sure to fade but always sure to return again and offer a respite from the long bleak winter. Perhaps there is a very, very rare flower - a rose that blooms eternal. A flower so fragrant and stunning and full of magic that even the coldest winter wind cannot steal its warmth.

Perhaps I'll always be a hopeless romantic.