A series of perfect moments.

I was walking across Golden Gate park and the fallen leaves were as broad as sheets of paper, scraping noisily over the pavement. Cold sunlight shot across the green. Someone held my hand and my heart beat hard and it was a perfect moment. 

The bride and groom both stole into our circle as we danced to a Kesha song. They were old friends and new friends and my dress had a cape. We were candles in the night, flames to light their fire before we left them alone. My dourest friend, finally convinced, trudged into the circle in a blue suit and danced with his wife. I've known her since she was a child, I know their child now. I took a swallow of champagne, the circle was unbroken, and it was a perfect moment. 

A tall girl came up the concrete stairs to my good friend's house in a uniform with a moth pinned to its shoulder. My friend, my quick and brilliant well-read friend said, "You're Lyra!" The girl was Lyra, and no one else had known her name yet. We flung handfuls of chocolate eyeballs into her bag and it was a perfect moment. 

I opened a package I wasn't expecting and found a gilt-edged 600-page book in Bible drag with my name in it. I hefted its weight and thought about how proud my ten-year-old self would be to see it. I opened the door and let her in, let her have her perfect moment. 

Space Mom called up her sister-in-law Space Aunt and they talked about how proud of you they are, how happy it makes them to see you succeed. They don't share a universe or a timeline; they only share a perfect moment. 

Drinks with a brilliant playwright and I got to gush my admiration for her work, to tell her I loved her rewrite of Miss Julie as a post-apocalyptic tale of men and menopause set on Nob Hill in San Francisco. She told me that my work mattered to her and the ice melted into a perfect moment. 

I read "In the Dream House" by Carmen Maria Machado one feverish morning and saw that her footnotes were mostly from Thompson's motif index. I quickly messaged the teacher who taught me to read folklore, how to use the tools to understand it the way Machado folds it into something breakthtaking and new. His response/her footnotes/my book in the bath was a perfect moment. 

Palahniuk says a moment is all we can ever expect from perfection, and I've always believed he was right. But he never said there was a limit on how many moments we get. I keep pushing my belly back up to the bar, signalling for one more. And perfection keeps delivering, as long as I take them one at a time. 

It's going to be a long winter. Perfect moments will stretch out across it, like the little lights we set against the darkness until the sun comes back. I wish you a series of perfect moments as bright and as populous as mine. I wish you the ability to see them, drink them in, remember them, and the courage to ask for one more. 

In defiance of last call, 

Meg