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title = "beautiful things"
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Blessed are the souls that find within themselves the drive to seek them out. Mine is not yet one of them.
Note: This post began as a prose companion to "stargazing (part 2)" and quickly became a somber journal entry. I hereby vow that I'm okay, especially so now that these words are not purely internal. Also, I acknowledge that I've had a much easier pandemic experience than most. I'm not trying to belittle or invalidate any experience; just to discuss my own and be truthful about how it's felt.
During my first year at university, beginning Fall 2019, my courses carried me every day out of my residence hall, across a rather large pedestrian bridge, to the heart of campus. The university has excellent public transportation along this route, or so I hear. The seasons made this voyage, in turn, crisp, then frigid, and finally spring-brisk, just as the COVID-19 pandemic began to constrict. As winter approached and the sun ever sooner abandoned the city, so did the stars rise earlier in consolation. Every morning was painted thoroughly in the colors of the rising sun, and many nights began silently, softly, beneath the stars left in its absence. It was truly a beautiful thing.
Rather, it still is, and I imagine it will be until the bridge crumbles to dust or the stars fade to black. The bridge is a twenty-minute walk from my current home. It is a three-minute walk from my workplace. The area's suitably safe at night. I haven't seen it at such a beautiful hour since those days. I haven't bothered to.
Tension. Between action and inaction; between indulgence and contentment. Even as I write, I know I could go. I can continue writing this post for readers countable on one hand, or I can go stand beneath stars uncountable on one thousand. This is familiar. I can continue writing, gaming, or watching this week's chosen on-demand media. I could instead call my parents, text my sibling, reach out to an old friend, sit in a park and just breathe, see the world, or look wistfully beyond it. I *could* stargaze.
I've learned things while living alone. I've learned exactly how little I bother to do without someone around to nudge me. I've learned that as much as I embrace modern spirituality and espouse meditation and advocate for quiet, reflective idleness, I do nothing of substance. Stargazing, you can feel your soul reach out. Sitting in a park, watching a passing mother and daughter play with bubbles, you're filled with a gently powerful warmth, even when you didn't layer up as much as you should have. When out for a walk with someone you care about, and fresh out of conversation, your very souls seem to connect and together overpower any awkwardness that might otherwise inundate the silence. That is substance; that's what matters. Even at my best, when I'm meditating, learning, working, exercising, and eating properly, I do little of substance. Locked away in my apartment, my soul sleeps.
Likely, these moments will be restored as the pandemic wanes. As in person interactions resume, I'll start to actually interact with human beings again, on my own terms, with no limiting agenda like work or rock climbing. Then again, periods of my history worry me in this regard. I have before gone many months engaging with high school clubs and socializing well enough during classes without ever actually spending free time with my peers. That works for some, and that's fine. It was unhealthy for me. I couldn't work up the nerve to invite people out, or even to accept invitations. Nothing is convincing me now that things will be any different this time around, but there's a lot that I don't know.
Maybe I'll go ask the stars. In the meantime, find a few beautiful things for yourself.
Ty (chronic almost-stargazer)