Fifteen or twenty years ago, a movie was released whose title I cannot recall and which my Google-fu is inadequate to discover. In it, persons who had just died, before being admitted to Heaven, were asked to choose a single day of their lives to eternally relieve in the afterlife. Each person was allowed to review his life to choose the day in question; once done so, his memory would be wiped of everything up to the beginning of that day, whereupon he would relive it without knowledge that it was merely a simulacrum. Once the day was done, the person would go to sleep and awaken with no memory of the perfect day, thus to live it again as if it were the very first time.
Tell us about the day you would choose.
Feel free to specify just a perfect hour, morning, afternoon, or evening if you wish.
When I lived in Santa Cruz, several times per year I’d invite my best friend to come visit me and we’d borrow a guide dog puppy to take around town. I don’t know what the “best” day would be, but all of those days went something like this:
–Go to Brazilian cafe for breakfast (with guide dog puppy)
–Take a walk on the cliffs together
–Go to Thai restaurant for lunch
–maybe swap guide dog puppy for one of my neighbor’s pet dogs, or a different guide puppy (there were several that I petsat regularly)
–Go to the beach or take a hike in the redwoods
–Each dinner at Indian food place
–Spend all night playing dress-up with guide dog puppy
“You know one of these summer days, in and outside the house we fairly recently had bought, when the kids were playing in the grass, my wife planting some flowers or something…? I sat under the tree with a book, a lager and my pipe, sometimes reading, sometimes catching a bird with my eyes, or just looking at the kids, smiling, knowing that paradise is a place on earth; you know one of these days, it could be when I was digging up the bush and the shovel broke and I went and bought a new, or when me and my brother were cutting down these trees in the garden which were blocking the view. It really doesn’t matter which day in particular, but one of those days, you know? Everybody’s happy, carefree, and loving. One of those days would do.”
Last year, about a week before Halloween. My girls and Mig and I were hanging out in the back yard, carving the pumpkin and then we grilled. We had a little radio playing and the girls were jumping on the trampoline and hula hooping. Mig was goofing around, doing flips on the swing set. The dogs were running around chasing each other. I have photos to remember; everyone was smiling and happy. Bills didn’t matter, immigration status didn’t matter. The future and the past were a million miles away. We were just living the moments as they came.
Wake up in an awesome B&B next to an awesome woman. Have an amazing breakfast cooked by a cool hippie chick. Walk on the beach. Outdoor hot tub. Sex. Into town for lunch. Walk around town. Amazing dinner. Back to B&B for cuddles and a movie. Sleep.