Of the silvery moon

I am looking forward to swooning, soon.

This might seem a strange thing -- to hear a large hairy straight male speaking of "swooning". And what's more, with pleased anticipation.

But the word has two meanings. First in most people's minds is "to faint". But the other meaning is mine:

"To be overwhelmed with ecstatic joy."

That is what I am looking forward to. And that is why I am taking the time to explain this aspect of the word, and take it back for all humanity from its connotations of wimpiness.

(Though I have an interesting ally in this effort. Harry Potter, termed "The Boy Who Lived" in the books, might as well be called "The Boy Who Swoons", though in the sense of the first definition -- he passes out more than a Jane Austen girl, 3 or 4 times per book. Granted, magic is weighty and mysterious stuff. But still I smile to think of a whole generation of readers, young males included, being subtly indoctrinated that it is all right for even such a hero to swoon without rebuke.)

The reason I am sure that I will soon swoon: tomorrow I pick up my new eyeglasses. And I know from experience that to look at the world through new lenses brings me first to giddiness at the clarity of things, then a state of ecstasy as the incredible detail of existence pours over and into me.

I will become enrapt over the minutiae of reality, created just for that moment, my already sharp appreciation brought into renewed focus.

I will be struck anew, in stunned awe, by sky and cloud and mountain and tree and the gleam of sun on hair and the curve of a woman's cheek as she smiles.

I will become lost in each great new vista, just as in each grain of sand.

And I know I will wear a great beaming grin.

And I will swoon.

And if you would think to mock me for my delight in the sheer brilliance of the universe, would think to belittle me that I could find ecstasy in such a simple acknowledgment of existence, I will ask you:

How can you not be ecstatic?