Moment of clarity

She looked out of the window of the moving car. A simple gesture, and yet it made her feel liberated. As she inhaled the fresh air of the mountains, she felt a strange sort of happiness rushing into her lungs. 

She had almost thought she was incapable of experiencing this feeling. But here it was, embracing her with open arms, traveling as if part of the breathtaking scenery that was traveling alongside her, racing with the wind, the trees, and people.

She found herself smiling at complete strangers. And found them returning the gesture. Away from the hustle of mundane city life, the air here felt pure and the warmth in people genuine. 

All of a sudden, a thought crossed her mind. She retrieved her Nikon SLR from her bag and started clicking random shots from the car window.

But all she could manage from a moving car were blurred images. Preserving the moment would mean slowing down to capture it. And slowing down meant to risk lowering the adrenaline rush.

And that made her think about life, about all the times she had traded those little moments of happiness for something more solid, more promising, more permanent.

But wasn’t happiness a fluid concept, she wondered. One fleeting moment after another. Maybe sometimes she tried too hard to make a memory out of them. Perhaps these moments weren’t meant to be preserved, but lived in there and then...exactly like the beauty she was experiencing around her.

The emotional freedom she felt was a state of mind. And trying to freeze it merely distracted from the here and now. 

Like every authentic emotion in the world, happiness too had to be perceived, first, with the heart...before it was lived, loved, and let gone of. 

Packing her camera back into her knapsack, she smiled to herself.

From now on, there was just one thing to do...enjoy the moment!