It’s Christmas day. I’m in a recliner sipping anisette and watching Before Sunrise. This was a brilliant idea put into film: a story of two people meeting on a train, sharing an intense connection and spending the rest of night together in Vienna, talking, until morning when one must depart back to the states and the other back to Paris. This had to have been written by a woman, but it’s pretty much what I want in a relationship at this point in my life: 12 hours of intense engagement through minds, through bodies, through shared experiences, and then it ends. No prolonged stress, no agony, just enjoyment, appreciation, and an eagerness and openness to learn and understand the other without the residue of a history of conflicts that those in long-term relationships may have. Simplicity.
