Stones like these
are just like fuel underground
You stop my feet
from floating up when I come down
I go up
and watch the world spinning round
But I came down
You can’t see
that I’m like dust on the ground
The wind picks up
and then it blows me around
I go up
and watch the world spinning round
But I came down
Finding out the northern lights
Out Of The Moon
Last year, I spent about (what felt like forever) 5 months in a waiting/interviewing/paperwork process to look at the possibility of coming to work in the US. It didn’t work out at the time for a number of reasons – but I’m here now for 4 months.
The first of these months is nearly over, my brain and feet and breath finally settled into a rhythm of life here. There are sunshine skies that last forever. Long evenings. All the tastes and aromas of life are different, prioritized differently, examined and enjoyed differently.
At first it’s the large things that take your notice but eventually it’s the smallest of things that catch your attention. Like the sky. Here’s what I sent home recently..
the sky is blue today. that kind of blue they call azure. and though it’s light, warm blue – it’s like a hundred thousand translucent layers so the sky feels deep and warm. how can the sky feel deep? and yet it does.
so am i at at the bottom looking up or the top of the sky is really earth?
everyday i look out from my office across to hills that are brown and covered in houses that are made to keep the light out. they are made to keep the light out because the sun carries heat so strong in the middle of summer that the only way to survive is to stay in the dark as much as possible. isn’t it funny that back home our houses are built to catch the light because of the warm it brings and here they have windows the size of shoeboxes?
everything seems brown and covered in dust because of drought. strange isn’t it. and california – you think of it as being a beach state, and certainly San Diego as being a beach town.. but really – the beaches are beautiful yes, but thin strips of sparkly sand and that same reflected azure sky carried in water. it’s 10% beach and 90% desert which affects my theology.
The sea blows in a marine layer every morning – it’s like a sea fog that hangs in the sky instead of along the ground. and why not – because the sky is so vast and huge, so warm and blue – i would, if I was marine layer – want to hang in the sky.
most days it blows out again, and the warm breeze is left on my skin, the dryness of the air making my skin tight and dry in places unusual. and why am I telling you these things? well because my story at the moment is found in the geology, in the air and in the shape of the desert all reflecting my spirit and my heart.
The moon is upside-down, but I am getting used to the view.
Strange & Unusual Observations
After four weeks, I get surprised with the phone rings. It was the most familiar sound back home. I was used to eating and drinking and sharing life with with multiple people from multiple worlds every day. I’m surprised with the sense of vitality I miss from that.
Without my phone ringing all the time – I do feel more relaxed.
Change and life carries on exactly the same at home (so I am assured) yet I constantly feel anxious about the life that carries on without on it’s own path & trajectory – so perhaps I have an over-inflated sense of self-importance.
It’s easy to be here, it’s easy to make a new life when you have something to do. My list of things I want to do is constantly expanding, mostly filled with places I’d like to visit, things I want to see and do and dreams of wide highways, mountains, green that covers me like swaddling clothes, desert rocks and Yosemite, Yellowstone and Yukon.
I like, no, I love this space. I love these people too. I feel at home. Even if the moon is upside down!