Bliss

I was set to thinking about Bliss recently when I saw this in the New Yorker, in a review by Merve Emre:

Or as a character in Sigrid Nunez’s “What Are You Going Through” (Riverhead) says, “But after a certain age, that feeling—that pure bliss—doesn’t happen, it can’t happen.”

The dictionary definition of bliss is perfect happiness, great joy, with the added note, “a state of spiritual blessedness, typically that reached after death.”

I have lived in bliss twice, first at age 24 and then age 26. I no longer live in bliss but I have a lovely home in a close-in suburb. Is bliss strictly for the young? I can still see the state of bliss from my front porch. And I actually had a spiritual experience akin to bliss last week—while standing in line at Safeway.

Is Nunez right? I am not sure. Are you?