A Sense of Possibility

One of my favorite lines from the extraordinary film The Hours, is when Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) reminisces arising at dawn:

"and there was such a sense of possibility. And I remember thinking to myself, so this is the beginning of happiness. This is where it starts...and of course there will be always be more."

In reflection, she goes on to say, "It never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning. It was happiness. It was the moment. Right then."

The image of Virginia Woolf, (played by Nicole Kidman), above, parallels the state of mind of a writer, waxing and waning between bursts of creativty. Things are still, yet always, always in a state of perpetual change, like the crest of an ocean wave before it crashes into the surf. There is the constant what happens next of tomorrow that keeps me going. Meanwhile, thousands of words, images, and ideas might be whipping through the air--or simply lie waiting, motionless and expectant; a blank page holding infinite realities.

I once took it for granted that a completed script-or any accomplishment- would indeed be that long sought after trophy of happiness, and that achieving it would be the ultimate elation of spirit.

But then, maybe the walk on Prospect Avenue, the blank page, the sense of possibility one feels in youth upon waking up at dawn and not knowing the ending-

Maybe this is happiness. Right now.