I had a meal tonight that made me cry from beginning to end.

The simplest things moved me the most.

The butter — suspended — dusted with diamond salt.

The bread — hot — that tasted like a field.

An old, fine wine I’d never had before, from a grape I’d never heard of before, grown on ancient vines and crushed in a winery carved into a mountainside.

Everything tasted like where it came from, as if it took you to where it grew.

Each flavor raised memories and emotions, sweet and bitter, that lasted longer than you could believe.

I literally had to hold back through the entire meal.

I thought of movies you watch again and again even though they break you.

(For me, Iron Giant — why do cartoons about robots always fuck you up?)

Unlike films, meals too quickly become irretrievable, only memories.

Yet they never leave you. They change you, stay with you, become part of you — permanent feasts.

In years you can ask –Remember that? and it all comes back to you as if it just happened.

(I walked out, feet above the floor, with a smile that simply would not fade.)

See? — I’ve just relived it by telling you.

— E