Enlightenment at the Laundromat

I was at the Laundromat. I bought a .99 book at the Goodwill about a week before: Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories. Being near the end of the school semester, I didn't want to start any long reads, so I've been reading the short stories while waiting for things I'd rather not be waiting for (Last week, "A Diamond Guitar" while waiting for my car at a mechanic's shop... This week, "A Christmas Memory" while at the laundromat). I loved reading this passage, as Buddy (a young boy) and his best friend (a 60-something elderly woman) are flying kites, accompanied by their dog, Queenie:

"My, how foolish I am!" my friend cries, suddenly alert, like a woman remembering too late she has biscuits in the oven. "You know what I've always thought?" she asks in a tone of discovery, and not smiling at me but a point beyond. "I've always thought a body would have to be sick and dying before they saw the Lord. And I imagined that when He came it would be like looking at the Baptist window: pretty as colored glass with the sun pouring through, such a shine you don't know it's getting dark. And it's been a comfort: to think of that shine taking away all the spooky feeling. But I'll wager it never happens. I'll wager at the very end a body realized the Lord has already shown Himself. That things as they are" -her hand circles in a gesture that gathers clouds and kites and grass and Queenie pawing earth over her bone- "just what they've always seen, was seeing Him. As for me, I could leave the world with today in my eyes."

-Truman Capote

Maybe she's right. Maybe not. One day, we'll all find out.

In the meantime, I'll keep trying to open my eyes a little more, every day.