“Quiet Times”

“They had been talking about simplicity, quiet, and peace, then “Magnolia” came on with its ever-so-simple music, its ever-so-simple longing; and the song whispered to them the secret of honest naturalness: that as one removes the frills used to prettify life, lowers one’s voice while addressing it, and humbles one’s ego before it, one can see, hear, and feel its beauty in ways previously unknown. It is always in these settled moments of life that one feels the deepest happiness: when lying, hands beneath one’s head, on a boulder beetling over the sea, as the sun sinks imperceptibly behind its edge; or when walking, arms on waists, with one’s lover at dusk on a muted lane outside a small French village; or when, while reading Hugo’s description of the bells of Paris, one finds oneself atop her tallest tower deafened by the tintinnabulation and dazzled by the rays of the rising sun.”