i have experienced the most perfect moment....

the first night of freezing temperatures in nyc and ken invited me over to his really comfy and cozy apartment in hell's kitchen for dinner and to spend the evening....never one to arrive empty handed if i can help it, i grabbed the first bouquet that i came across trying to get from east harlem to that little slice of heaven he calls home....unfortunately for ken, my bouquet was a choice of two, either green beans with almonds or broccali with chedder cheese sauce since birdseye was on sale and i'd just been to the giant pathmark near my apartment....

when i walked into his home, i was greeted not only with his oh so adorable face, but he had set out a platter of cheeses and bread and crackers, as well as a really delicious bottle of cabernet sauvignon....we snacked and chatted and suddenly it dawned on me that i heard crackling and popping from the far end of the apartment -- he had laid the first fire of the winter season in his fireplace so i asked if we could sit with our wine in front of the fire...nothing makes me more centered and aware of everything around me than a nice home made fire....

as we lay on the couch, slouching ever so slightly further and further into it's generous and very cushy depths, ken asked if it was ok that he lay with his head almost on my lap....who could turn down a cautious questionning of said nature....so as he lay with his hair wrapped in my fingers and his breathing growing so steady and even, deep and sonorous, like the weltering flames of his fire in front of me, i could hardly help but be overtaken by a sense of such complete and utter contentment that it may have even bordered on rapture....the thing was, with ken's head on my lap and my hand playing along his arm and in his thick beautiful hair, i was so lost in my own thoughts that i didn't realize until many minutes later that as he was drifting in and out of a comfortable and unfettered slumber, i was actually crying....

that's when it struck me....just how idyllic and perfect that very self-same moment in time was for me....somehow it held everything i've ever wanted and all the things i've never had or couldn't find in a lifetime that must have been spent searching....as my tears slowly dried into blotches on either side of my face, i was forced to move and shift causing ken to slowly focus on being awake with me and i just had to tell him how i was moved by that immense burden of life being relieved in his home, nay, in his presence...astoundingly, as i tried to minimize my words and just get the exact sentiment of all i was feeling without all the adjectives, i not only realized that maybe i was crying not because i'd never had that moment before or even that i'd searched for it in vain, but instead, i think i have finally realized that my life should have been filled with many moments such as that one and somehow, sharing that one perfect moment, in solitude and faltering shadows of light, with ken, even as he slept, i knew i had missed out on so much of life's beauty and that i really want to be a part of something that allows me to see moments such as this, and feel emotions such as these....but to me the most beautiful thing was when i finally finished explaining in as few words as i was able, ken said simply, "i know, i was in that same place with you."

now that is a moment i will always remember, and whether another perfect moment ever comes along in this lifetime, it will not matter, for i've had one, and if you've had just one perfect moment with such clandestine beauty and such unadultered pretense in a lifetime, you know that the self same single moment is enough to sustain a soul until the end of all time....