oh to see far enough...
tell me truly, do you ever get the most precious glimpse of your finite existence?...a time when the clouds are formed just perfectly so over the late afternoon sun, gently allowing the human eye to espy the earth as from something now infinite...such a peep surely brings a renewed sense of existence and perspective.
perspective...there's a word.
As I was driving home last night from Joel's parents house, listening to Tice's new album, I saw the most intimate sky. It was not spectacularly colored or surprisingly stunning, but it caught my eye just as my ears were being coaxed by a very clever, vulnerable, emotive, and openhanded lyricist - and the true beauty of life came over me* because, for that moment in time, i was able to loose my life in the history of the universe. All the possible wars, car accidents, careers, relationships, breaths - none of it mattered to the cosmos.
Clinging desperately to this embryotic state of nothingness, I was able to relate to my cherished spouse. As a boy, joel had a bedroom with a window resting on the roof, and in order to access this window more readily, he built a bed to extend upwards, making it possible to sleep with his head almost entirely outside. This stargazing not only birthed his fascination with astronomy, but feed the deepest part of his cavernous spirit. He says the stars give him a perspective that would remind him of his fleeting life...and his worries melted away. As we were dating, joel would describe this same ritual - of a communion with god provided only by the night sky....of a deep realization of god's own pain in caring for his children.
(swoon, i know.)
However, it was my turn to experience this yestereve (and none too late). My spirit transcended, i felt as light as a feather, easy as a summer breeze and every other cliche phrase you could imagine.
"The tradesman, the attorney comes out of the din and craft of the street, and sees the sky and wood, and is a man again. In their eternal calm, he finds himself. The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson in Nature
seattle is just gorgeously gloomy today - and it could not suit my parched soul any better.
~crm
p.s. Tice, if you ever read this, though I doubt you will, you have single-handedly completely changed my mind about The Road. Your powers of persuasion through music I do not take lightly, and nor should you, but I am really moved by the song, and this emotion has moved me to reevaluate the novel - and the more I do this, the more I do really appreciate what it has done for literature...and am even moved by the erroneous grammar and syntax as I now see it as necessary, purposeful, and intensely effective.
3 comments:
"The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough."
Truer words are rarely spoken.
I love seeing your soul open to the subtleties of this earth, hearing the lessons you learn from brief moments of transcendence. Namesté my friend.
"to expand one's sense of self to encompasse all things is the nature of love."
-Thlipsis Universalis
I also love gorgeously gloomy days. I feel snug.
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