Monday, March 4, 2013 6:45 pm
For once, I feel like I can just sit out here in my backyard, in a near-meditative state. (In other words, this evening feels like the antidote to my last blog post.) I throw my head back over the top edge of my green wooden chair, and stare up at the sky. A single bright star looks down at me. Of course, this reminds me of Keats' poem, "Bright Star," although I can't remember any of the verse, not having read it since freshman year of college. It is probably the North Star I am looking at, but I am not sure which one Keats was looking at, or if he was speaking about a woman and not an actual star.
Through the branches, a second , dimmer star peeks out suddenly. The blinking lights from two fast-moving aircraft catch my eye as they make their way across the sky, and topmost plane seems to go right past the brighter of the two stars. It is like an optical illusion, this movement, as it makes the star and the plane look very near to one another, though there are light years in between the two objects.
A third star appears off ot the south, directly above my neighbor's chimney. And then a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, and a seventh. I am watching the sky come alive, the premier witness to the twilight as each star decides the precise moment it wants to turn on.
* * *
All of the snow out here, and the ice that lined the slats of our red deck, has melted in the heat of daylight.
Today, I was thinking of sunshine. I was noticing sunshine for the first time in a long time in the midst of a Pittsburgh winter. I even forgot for a moment to watch for my bus at the stop, so entraned was I by the wide swath of light that reached out to me across an open field nearby, at CMU. The rays hit me, warming my left leg immediately despite the chill in the air, and it suddenly seemed I had no other choice but to turn my whole body toward that warmth. I felt lopsided being only half warm, and not whole, somehow.
Today was starting to feel like a charmed kind of day--first, a university-sponsored lunch (a Pittsburgh salad, sans fries, for me) and free massages for commuter students, of which I am one, as you might have guessed from my frequent bus-taking. And now this--actual sunlight! It may sound overrated, but Pittsburghers will know what I am talking about, cloaked as they are in seemingly perpetual cloud cover.
My body feels spoiled today as it hasn't in a long while. And these few feel-good treats have been enough to rejuvenate my spirit, too. I realize just how much I have deprived myself of feeling good in my own skin for the last several months. I know, too, that the way the body feels is the basis for everything good in life. I know this because whenever I am sick or weary, I do not feel as much generosity in my heart for others as I want to. I do not, when nursing myself back from a bout of poor health, feel nourished or calm or able to focus on anything outside of myself.
As I prep to leave my house for Boston this week, this seems a good time to think about the state of my body. Little things like sunshine and massage therapy, a day of watching funny or intriguing movies or just letting myself be for a few minutes are like preventative medicine for body and soul. How a person be unhappy if she feels so good? For a few moments, at least, it seems nearly impossible to be miserable during those first few moments the sun shines after a long bout of darkness. And if she lets herself forget all else for just a few minutes, it might start to seem that everything she's been seeking resides right here, in her own skin.
A kind of wholeness emerges slowly, from within.
Brigette,
ReplyDeleteThis was such a lovely entry to read. I loved both the slow appearance of and the slow listing of the stars as they appear, and picturing you watching the night sky come alive, as you said. What a peaceful and calm setting to be in and immerse your readers in. I do know what you mean about forgetting what 'sunshine' is in this blanket of grey clouds we seem to always find ourselves in. Today is such a GORGEOUS day and it's really helping to get my mind ready for spring, and hopefully you're enjoying it, too. Hope you had an amazing time at AWP, by the way!
Your last line was really perfect, by the way. An absolute seamless conclusion.
Haley
I wrote in response to your last entry that there's a sense that you are inextricably woven with the place you're evoking, and this entry reinforces that. There seems to be such a restoration that occurs for you when you are engaging with the natural world, as if you are indeed whole.
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