"Watch the stars, see how they run You know the stars run down At the setting of the sun"
I need to immortalize this moment, frozen for a bit. I feel like I will value it later on. I just need to stress how peaceful this moment was, how even though we were talking about some dark things it felt placid, peaceful, reflective.
So I performed at a Ren Faire this weekend. It was a good time, but an exhausting time. I danced a lot and literally never stopped moving the whole. Day not that it stopped me from playing manhunt at night. And let me tell you, manhunt on a Ren Faire ground with no patrons and an army of grown adults is such a competitive time.
The first round I played. Didn't win but I got through halfway which isn't too shabby.
The second round Ap decided to follow me. I decided I was going to look at the stars. He decided to follow me, even though he is scared of the dark in the woods. So he followed me and I showed him my little hiding hole where I can see all the stars over a perfectly smooth lake. There were admittedly few stars out that night, lots of clouds, but the lake was pretty and smooth.
So we just start chatting and I don't know what was up with the mood. We must've reached a strange zen state because we just started speaking really calmly about everything.
"What do you think of when you look at the stars?" he asks me, eyes upon the sky. It's strange that though I have gone star gazing many times with people no one has ever asked me that.
"You mean scientifically or metaphysically?" I ask.
"Both."
"I think that they are beautiful and large. Thousands of stars and likely something out there looking back at us as the universe is just to big. And to them we might be specks of light."
"Light of something already dead."
"Wouldn't go that fatalistic. Most of them are still alive. And there is something comforting about them. I have family and friends all over and there is something peaceful of knowing that we look up at the same moon, the same stars. Maybe a different time zone, but the same one. It's uniting. You?"
"I think of them like magnifying glasses, amplifying power. There's definitely more to them than just burning balls of gas. And I think there's something looking down at us."
There is a pause, but not an awkward one.
"I think the last thing I want to see before I die is the stars." He says and we are both painfully aware that this could be a soon reality with the five years to live diagnoses.
"I think to see something beautiful before you die is the ideal." I reply.
He spoke to me of many things, which is shocking to me given the fact that I have only known him for less than a year. Of wanting to be remembered, for we are only truly dead when people stop telling stories about us. Of seeing banshees out in the Glasgow suburbs he came from. Of knowing that strength comes with pain and that most people want the strength but not the pain that it takes to get there, for we all break when we are pressured and then have to rebuild ourselves. How martial arts saved his life. Of how today was his birthday and he now was 20 so he won't be dying as a teenager. Of what a shooting star looks like because he has never seen one before. Of wanting to do so much, to do everything before he can't. Of loving the water, feeling peaceful around lakes. Of how atoms mimic the solar system so in a way we are filled with galaxies. As above, so below.
It wasn't like a monologue, but more peaceful reflections as we lay on our backs gazing up at the stars. It is something I have rarely gotten with people.
I assured him he would be remembered. I know I will. Faces bathed in grey twilight. Wonder upon his face as he looks up at the cloudy stars.
So I performed at a Ren Faire this weekend. It was a good time, but an exhausting time. I danced a lot and literally never stopped moving the whole. Day not that it stopped me from playing manhunt at night. And let me tell you, manhunt on a Ren Faire ground with no patrons and an army of grown adults is such a competitive time.
The first round I played. Didn't win but I got through halfway which isn't too shabby.
The second round Ap decided to follow me. I decided I was going to look at the stars. He decided to follow me, even though he is scared of the dark in the woods. So he followed me and I showed him my little hiding hole where I can see all the stars over a perfectly smooth lake. There were admittedly few stars out that night, lots of clouds, but the lake was pretty and smooth.
So we just start chatting and I don't know what was up with the mood. We must've reached a strange zen state because we just started speaking really calmly about everything.
"What do you think of when you look at the stars?" he asks me, eyes upon the sky. It's strange that though I have gone star gazing many times with people no one has ever asked me that.
"You mean scientifically or metaphysically?" I ask.
"Both."
"I think that they are beautiful and large. Thousands of stars and likely something out there looking back at us as the universe is just to big. And to them we might be specks of light."
"Light of something already dead."
"Wouldn't go that fatalistic. Most of them are still alive. And there is something comforting about them. I have family and friends all over and there is something peaceful of knowing that we look up at the same moon, the same stars. Maybe a different time zone, but the same one. It's uniting. You?"
"I think of them like magnifying glasses, amplifying power. There's definitely more to them than just burning balls of gas. And I think there's something looking down at us."
There is a pause, but not an awkward one.
"I think the last thing I want to see before I die is the stars." He says and we are both painfully aware that this could be a soon reality with the five years to live diagnoses.
"I think to see something beautiful before you die is the ideal." I reply.
He spoke to me of many things, which is shocking to me given the fact that I have only known him for less than a year. Of wanting to be remembered, for we are only truly dead when people stop telling stories about us. Of seeing banshees out in the Glasgow suburbs he came from. Of knowing that strength comes with pain and that most people want the strength but not the pain that it takes to get there, for we all break when we are pressured and then have to rebuild ourselves. How martial arts saved his life. Of how today was his birthday and he now was 20 so he won't be dying as a teenager. Of what a shooting star looks like because he has never seen one before. Of wanting to do so much, to do everything before he can't. Of loving the water, feeling peaceful around lakes. Of how atoms mimic the solar system so in a way we are filled with galaxies. As above, so below.
It wasn't like a monologue, but more peaceful reflections as we lay on our backs gazing up at the stars. It is something I have rarely gotten with people.
I assured him he would be remembered. I know I will. Faces bathed in grey twilight. Wonder upon his face as he looks up at the cloudy stars.