Something Ethereal

When this is all over with I’m going to a favorite breakfast place and settle into a deep conversation with my table mates, offering artful-disguised-as-clumsy banter to the waitress who’s heard it all before but plays along anyway, and savor eggs cooked by an unseen savior who hides just on the other side of a small window. When this is over that’s what I’ll do.

Last night we watched the crescent moon reluctantly drop down in the western sky, coaxed along in a slow dance of wonder by the stunning beauty of Venus. I burned an entire wheelbarrow of split wood in a pagan tribute to the dancers, sending sparkling tributes upwards to the heavens. My breathing raspy from the wood smoke and my mind calculating the cure for one too many gin and tonics before I turned in for the night. The pandemic hasn’t robbed us of this ritual just yet. May these nights last forever (maybe with less gin – sneaky spirit that it is).

The morning after such celebrations is a great time to go out for breakfast and make new memories over super-heated coffee. Perhaps that’s why I miss it so right now, or maybe I’m just ready for close banter with the outer circle again. We make our splash in this world and our ripples ring outward, intersecting with other rings from other splashes and others still, all bouncing off one another in a continuous dance across the surface of our lives. Social isolation removes the bounces, and we just ring across the surface touching nothing. Offering deeper moments with our immediate circle to be sure, but we need the interaction with others to influence our concentric circles. There’s only so much introspection you can tolerate without testing out ideas on the rest of the world.

On their own the crescent moon and brilliant Venus are striking, but when they dance together it becomes something breathtaking, something… ethereal. So too we might offer our own mark on the world as individuals, but need others around us to truly illuminate our place in the universe. So there you are; two analogies in one blog post, blended together and served piping hot, like that coffee would be. Cue the waitress rolling her eyes.