Bright Midnight

He takes me down a narrow street lined with trees and cafes where people are trying to soak up the weak sunshine. Across from the street is a giant, gothic, almost frightening looking cathedral that dwarfs the picnickers relaxing on the expansive lawn below.

“Our most famous medieval church, the Nidaros Cathedral,” he explains as he pulls into a parking space. “Oldest one in Scandinavia, too.”

We get out of the car and walk around, peering up at the copper-roofed spires, now a milky green, feeling the watch of gargoyles and faces carved into doorways. It’s gorgeous and eerie at the same time, and I take a moment to soak it in and wonder how the hell this thing was built so many centuries ago.

“Want to go inside?” I ask him as we pause by the giant front doors. You can smell the musty pews inside and the herbal quality of so many offerings coming through from the darkened interior.

He shakes his head. “I’ve been judged enough,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets.

I give him a curious look but he doesn’t go on. I don’t remember the teenage Anders having any problems with churches or religion. But then again, there was a lot—too much—I didn’t know about him.

I finish taking a few photos with my phone, focusing on the stone statues carved into the front, before we head back to the Datsun and make our way out of the city, heading past suburbs and strip malls that remind me of home. If home was brightly colored with that tidy, modern Scandinavian slant.

We’re silent for most of the drive, which I don’t mind. And for whatever reason, the silence isn’t awkward at all, it’s comfortable.

For once it allows me to focus on the journey, and even though I’m aware of Anders’ presence at all times, I feel my mind wandering blissfully. We pass through tiny towns, villages, settlements. The valleys are so lush and green it hurts my eyes, the mountains and forests rising up behind red barns and white farmhouses. Everywhere you look is a photograph waiting to happen, and when I roll down the window, the air smells like hay and grass and life being born again.

I close my eyes, smile, feeling the sun on my face and the sweet wind in my hair and I think, I’m happy.

The thought almost comes as a shock. I can’t remember the last time I really felt it.

Or maybe the moments have been too far between. That’s the thing about happiness. It comes and goes. There are moments of being happy, experiencing it purely, followed by moments of just being. There’s nothing wrong with being either, putting one foot in front of the other, air in and air out.

But the world makes you think you need to feel happy all the time. I don’t think that’s possible, at least not with me. Maybe true happiness is having moments like this and finding a way to hold onto them for as long as you can. Maybe happiness should be rationed, and when you run out, you need to create your own happiness to fill the gaps.

“What are you thinking about?” Anders silken voice slides into my thoughts.

I keep my eyes closed, the sun on my face. I should have known he’d be watching me. He always had that way about him. I guess that’s the poet in him. Always watching, always observing. Even when he should be watching the road.

I hesitate for a moment, not sure how deep I want to get with him. “Happiness.”

He mulls that over.

“And what are your thoughts about it?” he asks curiously.

I look back out the window at the passing mountains. “I think it’s a myth that people can and should be happy all the time.”

“I agree.”

“I think it’s an emotion that comes and goes.”

“Like the tide. It comes in but it will always go back out. That doesn’t make it good or bad. It just is. It’s life.”

“Yeah.” I turn my head over to look at him. He has his wayfarers over his eyes now so I can’t see his expression, though he is chewing on his lower lip in such a way that makes me want to chew on it too. I look back to the road and clear the image from my head. “Personally, when I think back to the moments where I was really happy, you know, when you’re just floating and you can’t stop smiling and you want to drop everything and do a little dance, it’s usually because some event has specifically happened to you. You’re not waking up like that every day because life is just that damn good, unless you happen to be some crazy lucky person where those events just keep piling up, one after another.”

“It sounds exhausting.”

“It would be. The happiness pile-up.”