A vivid memory of an otherwise ordinary winter’s night in Burlington, Iowa when I was 16:
It was early evening, completely dark. It was snowing but the wind was calm. Large heavy snowflakes were falling from a low sky. It was still and quiet; between the squeaking sound of each footstep in the fallen snow, I could almost hear the sound of the descending flakes landing. The streetlight was surrounded by a sphere of white falling spots. The world was muffled, clean, tranquil. The falling snow seemed to mute all agitation; at that moment there was nothing else but the silence, the halo around the streetlight, the untouched, pristine snow on the ground. The world was enveloped, I was enveloped, in what I only realized many years later was perfection: there was only this time, this place, no other.
I got to my VW bug, wiped the four inches of snow off of the windshield and window, and got inside. My breath billowed white clouds in the cold humid interior; I rolled down the window to clear out the steam, depressed the clutch, and turned the key. The engine, following a short resistance, turned over. Backing out of the driveway, the wheels made a satisfying crunch as they compressed the new snow.
I drove through a lightshow, disorienting yet fascinating, varying patterns of snowflakes washing over the car from a far distant vanishing point. I left the radio off, listening to the silenced sound of the engine and tires on still-pure snow.
The basketball game hadn’t started when I arrived at the gym. Coming through the doors from the cold night into the warm bustle of people and light and smells felt welcoming, communal, like a hearth. I found some friends in the bleachers and went to sit by them, not talking much, but watching the players warming up, the arcs of balls from hands to net, the squeaking of sneakers, the thumps of dribbles.
In the semi-steaminess, the light, the distended sounds, the hundreds of conversations, the warmth, again that feeling of being enveloped, protected, absolutely and unquestionably in place, in the only place that could possibly exist right then. A perfection. A peace.
***
Those moments rarely come to me now. With age comes control over the world, wisdom, understanding. At 16 I was in some sense very much out of control, spinning. But that out-of-control-ness also allowed me to fall into the core of the world, to the heart of the world, in a way I can’t anymore. Perhaps I’m spiritually stunted, perhaps I’m normal. I honestly can’t say. But I do long sometimes to be rid of my competence, my knowledge, my understanding, and be able to be enveloped by the world again, to feel what that 16-year-old boy felt that winter night, that sense of rightness and belonging. To believe again, to know again, at least in some small, rare moments, that the world, and my place in it, are perfect.
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