You wake with a full heart. You know the feeling. Opalescent dawn. Well-slept. Family asleep (and in health). Spring’s shrubs flowering (oh, for my azalea moment!). Puppy Henry poops in the right place (why God made pachysandra).  Sufficiency. Satisfaction. Serenity. But a touch of sadness too. Why? This moment is perfect! Which is part of the problem – our damnable evanescence -- while the Future nears. Is there enough milk for breakfast? Is an ache benign? Is a loved one not telling you something? And oh, most grieving, your inability to share this instant – whether you’re Michelangelo or Mikey Angell, you can’t. The more we feel, the more we feel alone.

Here, we sense, is a uniquely human instant. Henry has words aplenty, but none a plaintive sigh. Neither the birds – nor the azalea. A sigh arises from comparing two mental conditions, one you inhabit and the other you imagine. Whether yesterday, tomorrow, some Neverland, these speculative realms are all unavailable, visionary. We’re forever being yanked from our here and now to some elsewhere which contrasts with and critiques our present. Glad as we are, sorrow awaits. People will die. We’ll run out of milk. We’re not – ouch – where we’d hoped to be!

Here, in an eyeblink, the human tragedy. From the dawn of consciousness, we are never wholly where we are. Ejected from Paradise, headed toward a destination we dread, whatever our wins, we are playing a losing game. We will fail – to win that prize that glitters in mind. We will fail – to be known as we really are. We will disappoint others and they us. We will not endure.  And we can’t forget it – except, perhaps, for this brief sweet moment in the opalescent dawn.

Other creatures do not fail. If they do not seize a desirable prize – often food-related – oh well, better luck next time. If another critter doesn’t cotton to them, no worries, either they mosey on or duke it out. If aware they’ll die – a big if – why fret it? Dying’s the price of living, which all must pay. They may feel OK or crummy but never ecstatic, for ecstasy’s a rebound from despair.

They do not need to be known. A dog’s a dog – what more do you need to know? They never feel lonely in company or misunderstood, for these states are comparative and they do not compare. Top dog is a human, not a canine concept.

Henry wonders at this writing business. He’s glad I enjoy it as he enjoys chasing squirrels or lolling in the sun. But that I writhe so (with an h) and plead and pine! If it pains you so, why bother, his brown eyes ask. Because it feels good to writhe, I explain, and pine for peaks I’ll never attain in a dozen lifetimes. Have it your way, Henry shrugs, bemused.

Our inability to express ourselves may be the cruelest of human hardships. No other creature has contrived so many ways to reveal themselves but it’s no go, the harder you try, the worse it gets. What we wear, the songs we sing, our choices, our pictures and words all strive to declare us, yet we are always misconstrued. Or maybe (a recent hypothesis) we misconstrue ourselves! If only I could bring you into my dawn, but I can’t, I know, and time is running out.

It hurts being human. The harder you try, the more it hurts, but that’s the glory, too. We alone have stories. Our stories are cliffhangers, with beginnings, middles, ends. We strive, fail, dust ourselves off, and try again. Good for us.