Everything must go!

I spent a lovely day yesterday with my friend, Cliona, in the Donadea Forest Park eating cheese, drinking wine, dunking strawberries in chocolate, and lying on the grass looking at the sky through the trees feeling like a bit of a curious type of hippy who has given himself up entirely to pleasure! It was one of those days - the birds chirped louded apart from the times whenever we were speaking and then they were strangely silent as if they were listenly quite interestedly; ducks were ducking in the duck pond far enough away from the loving or longing looks of family dogs; lanes became paths became grassy earth beneath our feet as we felt that we were pushing the realm of our known world far enough to be adventurous - we even lost mobile phone signal!; and there we were talking deeply about why love was so complicated and if we two had been set up in an arranged marriage in some other society we'd have been happy enough after all. But no, we still believed in true love, and so we cheers to it and giving ourselves over to the other more sensual (but less visceral) pleasures in its stead, we were comforted by the smorgasbord of fruits of the good green earth laid before us in the long grass ...
Remembering the day reminds me of a quote by Olga Knipper, Chekhov's sweetheart, who said something to the effect that 'did we ever understand even a portion of the beauty that surrounds us in the world', or something similarly hyperbolic (if that's the word I want, as Bertie Wooster would say). And if we didn't have days like that every now and then, what would life be for anyway? It was a day fast on the heels of another heady, but less rewarding experience on Friday night. I was re-watching 'Amelie' over a bottle of Pinot Noir with a friend from the hostel, Ann. She's into French and had never seen it, so I guaranteed she'd like it, and then she feel asleep about half way through! Probably the wine, but then I thought that there was no such thing as synchronicity in friendship, trying to bury my indignation into a bitter smile but I couldn't quite manage it. All of which is hyperbole from me this time, by the way - at least that bit about the synchonicity in friendship.
But Sunday cured me of that, but it did get me thinking of the problem of love again, and why for lots of perfectly good people there isn't any. Chekhov knew all about the problem, and my friend Goren's friend, Francesca reflected the common concern about it by saying, with a great childlike quality, something like, 'it's terrible, all this lost love ... we'll have to do something about it.'(!) I agreed, but I was just not sure what you're meant to be able to do. Someone loves you that you don't, while you love someone else who doesn't you, while they love someone else, ... you get the idea. Maybe you're also in the middle of the reality as well, nevermind the idea. If so, Pinot Noir, my friend, Pi-not-Noir!
Today I was nose back to the grindstone again, which hasn't seen my nose for many a morning, and it got things balanced a bit - the lack of love (a minus), the wonder of the world (a plus), philosophy essays returned to deserving students (a sort of positive neutrality). But anyway, I've had a certain undeniable sense of peace since that decision not to go away for the year, giving me as it did the realisation that life is now and here, and with that piece of peace I continue 'on the road', a la Jack Kerouac. By the way, I'm reading P.G. Wodehouse at the minute and I think that explains alot about this sudden insobriety in my writing style. I'm sure it'll wear off, as indeed everything eventually does, but therein lies the rub and poetry of what still remains of our so-called 'life'.