Fate laughs at probabilities.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Quote of the Week – March 25, 2022
Filed under Quote
A Creation Myth
When the universe was new and the planets known to earth not even a glimmer in the gods’ eyes, the two brothers perked out through the center of the universe. The universe was like a drain running in reverse and the twins, for they were mirrors of each other, grinned with shining edges of light. They were dark, visible only to each other in this new universe they had found.
They dipped out of sight, only to return with two jugs. The jugs were shaped like the curves of a mother and could be carried by one or both handles. The jugs were full of old discarded stars from other projects, and no one would miss them.
The brothers started to dribble the stars out into the swirling of the universe. Laughing and talking they started making drawings with the stars. Here was their mother’s hair spilling out along her pillow. There were the birds that called the winds into being.
The edges of their bodies were covered in the detritus of stars and planets and those dribbled off of them as they moved between the galaxies. Could a human have looked at them, they would only have seen the barest hint of their shape, for they were of the space between the stars and the empty space within atoms.
The right-handed twin formed a tight flower bud, hoping that the swirling and expanding of the universe would open it into the flower he imagined. The left-handed twin shaped a cluster into a regular pattern with the patience of a pointillist.
Between them they poured out the stars, splashing in them as boys do with puddles. Recklessly dripping and dripping the stars this way and that.
They danced among the stars, between them, now hugging some close to create a picture, or running their fingers through them to scatter a too perfect bubble of stars into a crazy quilt of patterns.
Eventually, they tired of their game and left the stars to continue their motion and gathered their jugs to leave. They heard their mother calling them home and dropped their jugs which shattered into comets and planets and hurried home to dinner and dreams.
Filed under Writing
Quote of the Week – March 18, 2022
Ah! There is nothing like staying at home, for real comfort.
Jane Austen
Filed under Quote
Quote of the Week – March 4, 2022
When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
Lao Tzu
Filed under Quote
Burning coffee and Liminal spaces
There is something strangely comforting about the rest stops on the major highways of the East coast. It’s something about the sameness or maybe it’s just the liminal spaces are there to be filled with a repeat of memories.
I have been in these spaces with every conglomeration of family and friends. I have been sick and well. I have burned my tongue of vending machine coffee and gone back for more even knowing that I will do the same damned thing.
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I am an American and driving is part of our national identity. These truck stops are pauses. Spaces without real identity, but I can tell you that Chesapeake House is better than Maryland House and that Clara Barton doesn’t have the good vending machines.
I know that When I put two dollars into the coffee machine for lightener and sweetener that my coffee will come out not great, but good. Consistent. My first real memory off coffee is from one of these machines.
The bathrooms are universally either under construction or being cleaned so are always only partially opened. There are rarely lines, but when they exist they are usually related to the passenger busses if tourists or high school sports teams.
This is the rhythm of life. Of birthdays and Christmas, Thanksgiving and funerals, college commutes and road trips.
America thrives on a steady diet of motion and travel. And there is such beauty in the stream of traffic and life that pulses, stopping to rest for a moment. To have a picnic lunch or walk the dog. For toddlers just learning the ins and outs of bathrooms and crowds. Families and friends taking pictures to record a ridiculous moment at a rest stop that has a pretty sculptor a special historical sign.
And yet I know that I will never see these people again. We are part of the same stream, the blood in the arteries that separate and bring us closer together. But we are not friends. We are simply molecules sharing the same space for a moment. Maybe sharing a laugh or a smile. Being a little grumpy or tired, waiting our turn for the caffeine.
But sharing still a time and place. And I can never not love that.
Even when the coffee burns my tongue again.
Filed under Life in Random
Books to Read: February 2022
Summer Sons – Lee Mandelo
Vita Nostra – Maryana & Sehiy Dyachenko
Psychology of Intelligence Analysis – Richard Heuer
Worlds in Shadow – Patrick Nunn
Hell’s Princess – Harold Schechter
Silent Spring – Rachel Carson
The UFO People <– the author of this book is a journalist with VICE
Influence – Robert Cialdini
Jack the Ripper: A New Theory – William Steart
7 Powers – Hamilton Helmer
Filed under Books
BitterSuites 