Page 54 of Adultery

My heart fills every corner of the universe. I try to explain this to myself in words, try to find a way to remember what I feel right now, but soon these thoughts disappear and emptiness returns to fill everything once again.

My heart!

Before I saw a gigantic universe around me; and now the universe seems like a little dot within my heart that has infinitely expanded, like space. An instrument. A blessing. My mind struggles to maintain control and explain at least something that I'm feeling, but the power is stronger.

Power. The feeling of Eternity gives me a mysterious feeling of power. I can do anything, even end world suffering. I am flying and talking with the angels, hearing voices and revelations that will soon be forgotten, but that, at this moment, are as real as the eagle before me. I will never be capable of explaining what I feel, not even to myself, but what does it matter? It's the future, and I'm not there yet. I'm in the present.

The rational mind disappears again and I am grateful. I bow to my gigantic heart filled with light and power, which can encompass everything that has already happened and what will happen from now until the end of time.

For the first time I hear something: dogs barking. We are nearing the ground and reality begins to return. In a moment I will be stepping on the planet where I live, but in my heart I have experienced all the planets and all the suns, which was greater than anything.

I want to stay in this state, but my thoughts are returning. I see our hotel to the right. The lakes are already hidden by the forests and small hills.

My God, can't I stay this way forever?

"You cannot," says the eagle, who led us to the park where we will land shortly, and who now bids us farewell because it has found a new stream of warm air. It climbs up again effortlessly, without battings its wings, and controls the wind with its feathers. "If you stayed this way forever, you couldn't live in this world," it says.

So what? I begin to argue with the eagle, but I find that I am doing it rationally, trying to reason. How will I live in this world after having gone through what I did in Eternity?

"Find a way," replies the eagle, almost inaudibly. Then it departs--forever--from my life.

The instructor whispers something--he reminds me that I have to run when my feet hit the ground.

I see the grass in front of me. The thing I had so yearned for before--reaching solid ground--has now turned into the end of something.

Of what, exactly?

My feet hit the ground. I run a little, and the instructor controls the paraglider. Then he comes up to me and loosens the chains. He looks at me. I gaze at the sky. All I can see are other colorful paragliders, approaching where I am.

I realize that I am crying.

"Are you all right?"

I nod yes. I don't know if he understands what I experienced up there.

Yes, he understands. He says that once a year he flies with someone who has the same reaction as me.

"When I ask what it is, they aren't able to explain it. The same thing happens to my friends; some people go into a state of shock and they only recover when their feet touch the ground."

It's exactly the opposite. But I don't feel like explaining anything.

I thank him for his comforting words. I would like to explain that I never wanted what I experienced up there to end. But it's over, and I have no obligation to sit here explaining anything to anyone. I walk away to sit on one of the park benches and wait for my husband.

I can't stop crying. He lands, approaches me with a big grin, and says it was a fantastic experience. I keep crying. He hugs me, says it's all over now, and that he shouldn't have made me do something I didn't want to.

It's not that at all, I say. Just leave me alone, please. I'll be fine in a little while.

Someone from the support team comes to collect our outfits and special shoes and hands us our coats. I do everything automatically, but my every move brings me back to a different world, the one we call the "real" world, the one where I don't want to be at all.

But I have no choice. The only thing I can do is ask my husband to leave me alone for a while. He asks if we should go back to the hotel because it's cold. No, I'm fine right here.

I sit there for half an hour, crying. Tears of bliss that wash my soul. Finally, I realize that it is time to return to the world for good.

I get up. We go to the hotel, get our car, and my husband drives back to Geneva. The radio is on so no one feels compelled to talk. I gradually begin to get a terrible headache, but I know what it is: my blood returning to parts that were blocked by emotions that are finally beginning to dissolve. The moment of release is accompanied by pain, but it's always been that way.

He doesn't need to explain what he said yesterday. I don't need to explain what I felt today.

The world is perfect.

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