I had an unexpected, strange moment of peace today. I did not have to go the office immediately after I saw Silvia off in the morning, so I came home to have a bit of rest. I thought of Silvia, out there in unfamiliar surroundings, after a long exhausting journey in a car. How is she doing now? Now that my body was altered and I, too, was in pain and out of breath, I knew how she must feel. She was only further along the road than I was. Yet I still hoped for the best and believed, - or wanted with my whole heart to believe, - that things could still be well for her. Before going to bed, I prayed; I did the rosary first and then talked to God in whatever words that came to me, telling Him of our trouble and asking for guidance, and imploring Him to guard and keep Silvia. Afterwards, I instantly felt better. He was there, He heard me, the way He hears anyone who seeks His help; we were in His hands, no matter what, and He would see us through everything. And whatever happened was to the better, because it meant that such was His will.
Then I lay down. My limbs were heavy, and there was a weakness that weighed me down, so that I did not want to stir. It would have been hard to get up, if I had to. I was hurting all over, and there never seemed to be enough air. Still, I felt that my body was resting, and so was my soul. There was a deep relief I felt with my whole being. I was as one born again; my eyes has only just truly opened, and I was seeing the world as it was, in all its naked beauty. Things just *were*. It filled me with quiet amazement, and awe. If I were asked to describe it, I could have only whispered: "what beauty...what beauty..." over and over again, unable to say anything because it would have been impossible to put this into words. Colors were so brilliant they throbbed, and it almost hurt to see them. If I moved my hand, or saw something else moving, it seemed to leave behind a trail of afterimages, one appearing instantly after another, finally merging together and gradually melting in the air. Once, in some book, I had come across a description of the colors a character had seen in a dream: "He had never seen such colors before, - deep and dark, like those of gemstones". This was exactly how they were for me. Yet there was such a tranquility to it, to this blazing mosaic of jewels. The colors themselves were cool, and looking at them was soothing and gave me a marvellous feeling of calm, - the orange and emerald and indigo checks on the fleece covering of my bed and armchair, the embroidery on the quilt, the tender blues and whites of the geometrical patterns on the rug, the multicolored books on the shelves. It felt like an evening after a hot dusty day, spent in the shade of huge oaks, having bathed in the delightfully cool waters of a lake and drunk from a crystal clear fount.
All I saw around me was soaked with joy, - things pulsed with joy, joy seeped through every pore of every tiny thing, - joy, joy, joy. And as I lay, breathing in this joyous dawn of some new life which had just broken before me, I was full of hope, and knew that all could still be allright, and would be, no matter what.
Without noticing, I feel asleep. I had a dream where I saw two grape vines. Each was really odd, going straight upwards in those tangled coils, as if it had wrapped itself around a column, except the column itself was not there. I could not see what they looked like at the top, or whether they had any end at all; only the part of them that was right before me was visible. But I felt they really had no end to them, and stretched out infinitely into Heaven. Their bark was a dark brown, rough and covered in wrinkles that formed odd patterns, they way it happens with the bark of very old trees sometimes. Yet, I just knew they were grape vines, and not anything else. The way they looked did not surprise me at all; it was just right, and I knew that this was exactly how they should be. The two of these strange vines were growing close to each other by a bare gray wall. One of them was in a rectangular niche, or maybe a corner where two walls, equally gray and bare, came together. Its stem was twisted at sharp angles, and seemed thorny, while that of the other vine was in neat rounded coils. Both had no leaves whatsoever, but were covered in grape berries, - small, maybe just the length of the first knuckle of my ring finger. They were not joined in clusters like ordinary grapes, but instead, hung from the coils of the vines separately, with beautifully regular spaces between them. The vines were covered in them from the very bottom to the top, as far as I could see. The grapes were a very dark and rich red, the color of burgundy wine; they seemed almost black, but glowed with this exquisite deep red where the sunlight penetrated them, which made them look like gems. Their skin was covered in tiny wrinkles, looking a little like a web of veins or nerves covering the surface of each berry, and gave them a strangely ancient look. I knew these berries were ripe, ready for me to pick them, and I took one and put it in my mouth. It was deliciously sweet and the best thing I had ever had, and I woke with the taste still lingering on my tongue, - strong and full of joy, in spite of the dull wringing ache in my body, and sure that, even though a very tough time was approaching for me, I would be able to perservere.