After a party, a play, a reading--after any occasion requiring intense energy, focus, and feeling--the ennui that accompanies reality falls away, revealing wonder. I want to maintain it, but exigencies and disasters intrude. The feeling fades, and I hunger for it. Like the euphoria I come to expect from a cigarette or glass of wine. What is that feeling? An expansive sense of positive, no, creative potential in people, strangers, friends, myself, the present. Something like joy.

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