The Unbearable 'Rightness' of Being

I was literally standing in the middle of the living room trying to deal with the news that Phillip Seymour Hoffman reportedly died with a needle in his arm when that little bundle of joy arrived in my Outlook inbox.

I don't want to talk about Hoffman. Save to say that I was deeply saddened... and then incredibly angry that an actor who defied all of the usual clichés in his craft had become one in death. We lose celebrities to drugs far too often. I would never have expected this one to go out like that.

Dammit.

What I want to talk about is how beautiful it was to click on that link and listen to the laughter of the innocent. And to remember that no matter how tragic life sometimes seems to be... there is that, too. Do you notice? How many times today have you experienced a tiny moment of grace? Beauty? Bliss?

On New Year's Eve last year, just before midnight, my daughter, her boyfriend, my ex and I looked up at the stars -- there are more of them in the Arizona desert than you see in cities -- just in time to see one fall. It was a streak of glittering star stuff arcing across a pitch black "canvas."

And a moment of pure delight. And wonderment.

There is much to be sad and angry about in this world, make no mistake. But... we are also, always, endlessly fascinating creatures in a world that offers a miracle a minute.

And some of us are mad as hatters. In a good way. Life is a dance, between pleasure and pain. And sometimes, right between them, in the blink of an eye... there is magic. Watch. And remember that the next time tragedy strikes.