Just before bed, I took the dog outside. The air was much cooler and autumn has most definitely arrived in Warwick. The air was cool but the sky was clear. The tiny bit of sky that is ours, the bit of sky that exists in between the other houses, was smattered with stars of all different sizes. Stars of all different ages. Stars that still live and most that have died. Looking up at the stars is time travel. We are looking at light that has travelled so far that its source no longer exists. I search for meaning in that idea but tonight, it eludes me.
Pain does not elude me.
Just a small cut. Just a shave of skin. Yet the burn and the stab have continued all evening and I am worn by it. The stars soothe me for a moment. The tiny bit of sky reveals so many, I cannot count. I cannot even start to imagine how many stars exist up there, let alone in the whole wide sky. I try to connect my pain to the sky. A tiny bit of back compared to a whole wide sky. Just a fraction of the pain that exists in the world. But just as our few stars still shine bright, despite their insignificance in the whole universe, the multitude of hurt out there doesn’t diminish my own.
Sitting up in bed, I wish I had grabbed a blanket so that I could lie in the garden and admire those chosen many. But the moment has passed and I am warm and the air is cool and I am tired and my back hurts and I push away the fear.
all five horizons 