Happy Place

The anesthesiologist always asked the same question.  Tell me about your happy place, she’d say, pressing the plunger on the really good stuff.  Old and young, they would begin to tell her:  the spires of the Gothic cathedral, the broken waves foaming over the sand.  How the clock tower cast a shadow in the piazza, the chocolate muscles of a stallion in full gallop, cerulean domes in the morning glare of Santorini. California poppies winking from their seaside ground cover, fog creeping over the mountain.  Peaceful ovine grazing in the craggy Scottish Highlands.  The stepdown green of a vineyard in Porto, or Napa, or the Loire. Nets spread beneath the olive trees framing the climbs of Cinque Terre, waiting for the trees to drop their precious bounty. A rainbow of tulips, the painful orange yolk of a sun dipping beneath the Oahu horizon. But they’d all fall under so quickly.  She never got to hear about what might come next, the music or laughter,  the glowing eyes of the friends in their company.  Never got to see if tiny lights studded the patio, nor savor the char on the meat from the grill.