What Kind of Paradise

by Janelle Brown

“I morti non sono più soli.” The dead are no longer lonely.

“I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.” “What?” “It’s a quote from Antonio Gramsci.”

Halcyon days, then, are this beatific window of time: peaceful and calm, pure and happy, before the winter storms return.

Sometimes love manifests itself as a kind of amazed awe, as potent a feeling as any other form of connection: the shock of knowing that you are desired just as you are, no matter how broken you might feel.

Life is a constant emotional calibration, then: the tiny adjustments we make every day as we come up against our discontents. We ride this seesaw, between hope and disenchantment, seeking some sort of equilibrium.