The Enchanted Feeling

I sat on an orange couch and drank tea.

I love tea.

There was a girl beside me named Jo, a chic college student who is friends with my aunt and uncle. We talked about random things and sipped our tea, with various purchases of the day in plastic bags by our feet.

Perhaps because we were in a beautiful downtown area, or because I had a new friend, or because I was drinking tea, an enchanted feeling swept over me.

Sometimes I have moments that are different. The air buzzes funny, and maybe everything happens in slow motion, and I know that this moment doesn’t belong so much in real life as it does in a story or a dream.

Enchanted moments.

It happened in the  DC airport at 1 in the morning, when no one was around but my flight and everything was so weirdly empty and enchanted. It happened after the SMBI banquet, when I was drunk with happiness because SMBI had actually happened to me. It happened when my Dad bought me a dozen roses and I all of the sudden realized that I had enough money to buy a digital camcorder.

But the enchanted feeling doesn’t necessarily go hand in hand with nice happy things.

There was one time, near the end of Annie, when I stood outside and looked in the huge windows, where cast and crew members stood in little circles with their family and friends. I had no family and friends to celebrate with, so I turned and trudged away, clutching a half empty bottle of sparkling apple cider.

Another time I stood in a doorway and yelled at one of my best friends, when all of the sudden it occurred to me that she didn’t care.

Enchanted moments. How do you capture the feel of them and put  them in a book or maybe a movie, where they belong?