Extraordinary In The Ordinary
The fire crackled before us, its orange flames leaping upwards, licking at the crisp night air. Beyond its glowing reach, the darkness enveloped our surroundings. Blackness all around, save for the even darker shadow of the looming mountain ridge and the one lone light from the lighthouse, a small speck in the distance.
As I lay there, resting against my girlfriend of fifteen years, looking across the flames at the men we had each chosen and married, time slowed to the point of being inconsequential and I was swept up by the sensation of it all feeling so surreal. I shifted on the blanket, a thin and poor cushion against the gravel beneath me, and tried to redistribute the sharpness of a multitude of pain signals. But in this moment, the pain too felt insignificant.
What rose up before me was a tidal wave of gratitude and blissful contentment. Here I was, someone who had spent the majority of the last five years and counting in isolation, unable to spend quality time with friends in the way that typical young adults do, unable to be spontaneous in the ways that my spirit yearns for all the time, but now I was right in the middle of spontaneity. A casual remark about making a bonfire made during the daylight turned into a joyful reality that very night.
Our loves walked around the fire pit to join us on our blanket. Four bodies, laying intertwined, huddled together for any extra warmth we could get. I took it all in, like a deep inhale of the freshest breeze. I didn’t have to be well to have a perfect moment like this. I was having it right then and there. For who knows how long, we lay there in silence. No words needed to be spoken, no actions needed to be done. We simply basked in the firelight, four souls bonded in friendship, alone together in this little, pitch dark corner of the world.
"This is one of those extraordinary-in-the-ordinary moments" I breathed, breaking the silence. And it was. The extraordinary in the ordinariness of doing nothing but being fully present. The magical in the mundane. This was one of those pockets of peace that I dream of.
And in that moment, all of it was mine.