You’ve had one of those days, I bet. When everything you do, from the moment you arise until bedtime, seems to go not only exactly right, but feels just right, too. The sunlight is sublime. The temperature perfect. There’s a bounce to your step. All your cares have mysteriously vanished and your sore muscles miraculously healed. Your mind is sharp and clear. You suddenly feel happy and relaxed and content. In the zone. In tune with the universe. Blissed out.

Bliss. It’s a fleeting experience that comes rarely and unexpectedly. It feels unearned, but that’s the mystery and the joy of it. The feeling comes out of nowhere, an existential gift. You simply accept it, bask in its glow, knowing it won’t last forever. Probably not beyond this special moment. It may be years before you experience it again, if ever.

There’s a good line describing this feeling in a short story (appropriately titled “Bliss”) by Katherine Mansfield, published in 1918. She writes: “What can you do if you are 30 and, turning the corner of your own street, you are overcome, suddenly by a feeling of bliss – absolute bliss! – as if you’d suddenly swallowed a bright piece of that late afternoon sun and it burned in your bosom, sending out a little shower of sparks into every particle, into every finger and toe?”

You know what I’m talking about? Those rare, wonderful moments when you’re simply glad to be alive, a conscious entity in a world that normally feels chaotic and unpredictable and out of control. But today – this special moment – feels transformative, magical, perfect.

When I’ve been fortunate to have experienced these blissful events, I’ve usually been involved in some physical activity – walking, hiking, doing yardwork, downhill skiing, sitting meditation, practicing Aikido or yoga, fishing for trout. Maybe it’s all about endorphins and brain chemistry and complex biological processes. But I suspect something more is going on.

Moments of grace. If you’re religious, you may feel that you’ve been touched by God’s benevolent spirit. If not, it’s enough just to be part of nature, the turning wheel of existence. A Zen moment.

Once, on one of my morning walks, I was approaching my turn-around destination, Walker’s Point, the Bush family residence, on a particularly gorgeous spring day. The air was warm, the ocean was calm, the dogwoods were in bloom. The odor of lilacs permeated the air. I was primed.

Just before Walker’s Point there’s a place where on one side of the road you can see the ocean, and on the other side, a tidal marsh that at high tide turns into a small lake. As I reached this point, I was stopped suddenly by the march across the road of a mother Mallard duck and her seven ducklings. A scene right out of “Make Way for Ducklings,” the children’s classic by Maine author Robert McCloskey.

Watching this new family cross the road, I started to cry. Silly, I know. But I felt transported. Blessed. Blissed out.

 

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