How Dust Becomes My Adventure

Ed in a canvass recliner and me in my hat, we both settled down for a long winter’s nap. Er, or not. I bundled up in red Sally Who long johns, a flap in the back with buttons so your butt can peak out if you so desire, blue flannel dog pants, a big wool sweater, lambs wool coat and a scarf around my ears. Ed made hot chocolate and this time I poured the Chambord to avoid the sickly sweet of too much that betrays his heavy hand. And there we were, smelling the redwood damp yet from the recent rains and reclining comfortably back watching the sky. Brilliant green, blue, gold and white sprays of light streaked across the night. They began slow and erratic – one here and one there, every five to ten minutes – and then rose in frequency like an symphony reaching it’s peak at around 1:30 in the morning. Our ooooo’s and aaaaaaah’s and did you see THAT’s were reminiscent of a crowd of two watching fireworks. There was something just that much more spectacular about this, however.

They say that the genesis of these displays were simple specks of dust. Debris from a meteor, no larger than dust particles, traveling so quickly that when they hit the atmosphere they burst into flames across the sky. I can’t even fully fathom how a speck of dust could become such a marvel to wonder at. I think it must be as Rilke wrote in the Elegies, how when the bowstring feels the tension of the bow and in letting go becomes more than itself. It must be something just like that. And how odd it is to feel envious of a speck of dust moving through the night sky with such fury – to think to myself how it would be good and rich to be like it. To find in a moment that my one grand aspiration is to be like dust – knowing all along that this too shall be realized.

When the light show was over, or rather just slowing, and the cold had sunk into my bones, we moved the party into the house. We struck up the heater and nestled into the sofa and read bedtime stories. A bow on a perfect crisp night.

My life. How dust becomes my adventure.