A Moment of Happiness at 6: PM!

Sometimes we can find happiness in smallest moments.

Today as I was in my friend’s car, riding on Ridge Ave in Evanston, I was captured by an enormous beauty of my surrounding. Green trees, the illuminating sun in the afternoon…the shadow of branches on the road and the feeling of serenity and tranquility in the air...

-“What time is it?” I asked.
-“6: PM!” My friend answered.
-“I’d like to freeze the time….at 6: PM…”

I bought watermelon, fruits, cucumbers, tomatoes, red peppers, yellow peppers… and plums…and suddenly the voice of that mad-wise old woman in Harlem, New York City back in 1992 resonated in me. She had repeatedly said: “You all kill each other, I’m eating melon…”
Three bodies were lying dead on the street, covered with blood. A woman was licking an ice cream cone behind the yellow ribbons.
The mad-wise woman from Harlem ate the whole melon with an enormous pleasure. And I remembered the first coffee and cookie Eka bought for me after a year living in the U.S.! I wept and laughed at the same time when I drank that coffee. I had gone through a long journey since 1979 revolution…yet I was at the beginning of a new one. I had lost everything in War…and I knew what physical and emotional torture meant. Now I had a harder journey ahead of me!

It was still 6 PM. My friend was silent. We both listened to a classical music by Chopin, broadcasting from the radio. Then I remembered Marc in a tender moment of traveling back to October 1987. Marc swept away the sadness from my heart and whispered in my ear: “You’re precious!”
-“What”?
-“Precious!”
-“What does this word mean?” I asked him with curiosity.
-“Tomorrow,” He kissed my lips “Find its meaning in the dictionary!”

The car stopped at the door of my apartment. I laughed out loud with my whole being. I wanted to be silly, act silly at 6 PM. A time like today rarely happens!

-“Life is EXTREMELY beautiful!” I sang humorously with an operatic tone.
-“Sometimes…sometimes!” My friend murmured as he looked at me with astonishment.
-“Let’s have watermelon!”