Thursday, April 15, 2004

There’s a certain degree of cloud cover that’s just perfect, and we had it this morning. Sometimes I don’t like driving east to work, but today was a treat. Today I could look at the sun. It was a great glowing disc in a field of dirty white. At one point, the clouds just below it thinned, and although the disc itself stayed muted and viewable, there was a bright aurora beneath it that I had to squint against.

It’s not the first time I’ve been able to stare at the sun (who sings that song? I don’t recall…), but it always gets to me when I do. No wonder the sun figures so prominently in most religions and mythologies. It feels like you’re looking into the eyes of a god. Normally, you have to turn away or risk being blinded, hurt, struck down. It’s uncomfortable and exhilarating and wonderous to look up at that ever-present entity and examine it, even for a bare moment.

This morning, the sun was jubilant, burning off the clouds and attempting, in its singular way, to bring spring back to Calgary. I’ve also seen the sun angry, bloody and aged, filtered by wood smoke into reds and umbers. I was saddened those days.

It struck me this morning that it is such a happy accident that life developed on this planet, and that we can enjoy moments like this. I’ve been working on crocheting placemats, and yesterday I got to thinking that our lives are similar in nature: one thread weaving in and out to form a pattern, a whole of some kind. Occasionally, you’ll drop a loop, and it will unravel a little, until you can pick it back up. I’ve been feeling a little lately that I’ve dropped a loop or ten, and pieces of my life are starting to come unwound. But looking at the sun this morning relaxed me a little. Coming face to face with the eternal really puts all the little stresses and issues of my life into focus. I think I’ll be able to start picking up the loops now.

I fenced for the first time in two weeks on Tuesday. I’m out of shape and out of practice, but I can still get in some practice before Provincials in a week and a half. Tonight is the last UCFC practice of the term. It should be fun!

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