I can see the face of the moon

So for those of you who don't know already, I got new glasses this week. It's been a long time since I have worn glasses, and the last time I did, my eyes weren't very bad and I didn't absolutely have to have them. My eyes have gotten steadily worse over the past several years, but by some weird quirk of my personality, I am terrified of eye exams. So I have put off and put off the necessary evil day, until things got so bad that I was nervous driving at night and could barely see the subtitles on foreign films. I finally took the plunge last week, set up an appointment for this past Thursday, and tried really hard not to think about it.

The day came and I got the glasses....and I can hardly believe I lived without them for so long. Now I remember why I was so enthralled with trees and water when I was seventeen. For the first time in a long time, I can see the individual glints of the moon off the stream behind our apartment, and the separate twigs on the trees across the way. I can see the graininess of the sidewalk. And to my wonder and joy, I walked out with the dogs tonight to find a full moon...the night before Easter. And I can see it. It no longer has fuzzy edges....it is distinct, and perfectly round. Its face is no longer a blur; I can see every spot, every crater. It is amazing. I can not remember the last time I looked directly into the face of the moon and couldn't look away.

I thought I had become visually jaded, but it turns out...I just couldn't see!

And speaking of seeing things in a new way, Hubby and V. and I went Monday to Chez Yasu, a French restaurant in Topeka. The meal was fabulous and eye-opening. Our grilled shrimp appetizer in a balsamic reduction was so fabulous that both of us were entranced, and even V. happily devoured two succulent shrimp. I had a poached fillet of sole in a light seafood mousse...the fish was great, but the mousse was one of the loveliest most subtle things I have ever tasted. Hubby had a seafood crepe with scallops and shrimp in a dijon sauce. I tasted his sauce, and it was perfect. Both of our entrees were served with perfectly cooked marinated carrots and crisp snowpeas. V. had the quiche....well, he had part of it and Hubby and I couldn't keep our forks away from the rest. It was literally the best quiche I have ever had and has motivated me to start a quiche-trial marathon after Easter. It was incredibly fluffy, yet supported its small chunks of Gruyere with surprising ease. The pastry was so thin as to be phyllo-like.

And dessert....well, shall we say you have not had cheesecake until you have had the gateau au fromage avec Grand Marnier at Chez Yasu. Every bite was a revelation, down to the super-thin layer of surprisingly light sponge cake which served as the crust.

And to top everything off, the kind elderly lady at the neighboring table came over at the end of the meal and said she was so impressed by the fact that we brought V. and that he behaved so well, that she wanted to give him a chocolate chickadee. Which she did. And which he thoroughly enjoyed. And which I did not regret quite as much as I thought I did, since he conveniently crashed from his sugar high an hour and a half later as we drove home in the rain.

Rosebud tea

So I'm sitting here with a cup of steaming rosebud tea, one of my gifts from B. on her recent visit. If there's one word that comes to mind as I sip it, it is subtlety, a quality that makes me stop and think and let it linger on my tongue in an attempt to catch the flavor before it disappears. I have always loved the flavors of good black tea (I have long since exhausted the Marco Polo that C. gave me and desperately need to buy some more), and have enjoyed the more delicate aroma of scented greens. But the rosebud tea surpasses even those in its slight but full fragrance.

I was flipping through a book tonight that I checked out from the library. Most of you know my ongoing fascination with Virginia Woolf. It started years ago. I have read her biographies, many of her letters, her journals, and all of her novels. But until now, I had not yet read her correspondence with Vita Sackville-West, the well-known author and socialite of the time with whom Virginia carried on a long and nebulous affair of the emotions. Looking through the book tonight and reading bits and pieces of their letters to each other, I am reminded of the rosebud tea. There are hints and descriptions of elusive emotions everywhere, but rarely a full-blown expression of passion. The minds of two of the most brilliant women of the day dance around each other in a brilliant intellectual courtship that may or may not have ever been fully consummated. And yet, reading the letters, you get the distinct impression that the consummation was not really the point. The point was in the dance...in the ever-circling, entrancing game that they played with each other, sometimes drawing closer, sometimes pulling back. They hurt each other, and forgave. They spent their evenings thinking one of the other, and reveled in their loneliness. They bolstered each other's creative genius, tore down confidence, and built it back up. They let words of angry jealousy fly, despite the complete absence of any commitment or profession of love between them. But in the end, they loved each other without fail until Virginia's self-inflicted death in 1941.

So I am reminded again, as I take the last sip of my tea and prepare to shut down the house for the night, that it is the elusive in life that often is the most valuable, because the hardest to capture. The flash of a smile on a baby's face. The lingering aroma of a perfume, the name of which you forget. The maybe-love that flutters for years and never dies, yet never quite fully lives. The glimpses, swiftly seen, of something that makes us hang on to life for just another minute. These are the slight intensities I cherish.