Wendell Berry was right...anyone who thinks they can live in two places lives in neither.
Tonight the Milky Way stretches across a sky lit up by at least a thousand stars. A hundred and fifty miles north of here, in Bloomfield, the Milky Way is a paragraph in a textbook, and nothing more than that.
I live in both universes, the one with stars, and the one without. One with tidal flats, one with concrete. One with surreal moments under the sea, the other chasing the #34 bus.
Something as simple as that, the presence of stars, affects how I see the world, which means it profoundly affects who I am.
I forget this every day. Every day.
Words remind me, of course, but they ultimately fail.
If you trust words more than the sky, you may be human, but you will not be alive. If I have to choose between them, give me the night sky. Howling at the moon is wisdom enough.
Here's the trade we make--electric lights for an October night sky. We lose.