I was reading silvereyes last night, and her wonderful description of a perfect moment in her life. The prince has a great line on the same topic at the end of Anna and the King, about life having a string of perfect moments, but always so few. (Why do all of my great quotes in life come from the cinema? I read a lot, but obviously not "literature." Should I change that? Nahhh.)

As I was reading her entry, I wondered if it is really possible to pass on a perfect moment like that. And clearly it is. She did, and I suspect that is what so many writers, producers, directors and storytellers are always trying to do. Sometimes they are trying to tell a complete story, but I think often the purpose of the whole production is to set the scene for the perfect moment they want to give us. The moment that makes your throat tight and eyes water.

To pass on perfect moments. It is like our lives have such a shortage of these moments that we are always trying to grab a few more to add. To keep.

My friend, Eric, did it for me. I have considered trying to pass it on, and suspect he would not be upset if I did. It doesn't hurt that a show we flipped onto this AM, a CNN travel show, was covering Chile and, I suspect, the National Park in which this moment occurred. Talk about serendipity.

He was in the Peace Corps in Chile (Eric would insist you have to pronounce that correctly, even in your head. That is "cheel-lay", not "chilly"), and was being sent to a Chilean national park near the southern tip of South America. Access was by boat only, and he had hopped a ride on a small diesel fishing boat.

Eric woke up in the middle of the night, couldn't sleep and went out on deck. They were still underway, headed up the fyord into the park. He went forward to the bow of the boat. The moon was out, but in front of them and behind the mountains so that the peaks were cast in shadow. The sky was clear and as black as the mountains. The only way you could tell where the mountains were was by the absence of stars.

The sea was black also, and blended into the mountains. There was an algae covering the sea that flashed fluorescent green whenever disturbed. There were few waves, but whenever one whitecapped, it shone as a flash of green on the black sea.

The waves pushed out at the prow of the boat were also fluorescent green, and the boat was leaving a wake of bright green eddies in its path.

Dolphins were leaping and cresting along the prow of the boat, as they are oft to do. But in the moonlight, their skin was golden. Each leap out brought a flash of green, as did each re-entry into the ocean.

And that is Eric's perfect moment. The gentle thumping of a diesel engine on a black night on a black sea surrounded by black mountains. With golden dolphins leaping out of the black sea in rings of bright green, and then disappearing with splashes of that same green.

Thanks, Eric.