second sunset

"second sunset"  journal entry:

     In the busy airport, no one seemed living, all were thinking about the future or posturing and mask wearing. Where does this airport artificiality come from and why? What does this veil of cynicism arise out of?  All running from the danger and the small sorrows of leave taking and the hopes when coming together, what EXCITEMENT IT SHOULD HOLD!  WHAT LIFE SHOULD BE LIVED THERE!!  I noticed several things in the airport, most disconcerting. The future of Kubrick, and Levin, and Orwell is closer than I realize; I have been separated from reality while nestled at home in a cocoon mostly of my own design. I no longer feel of this world. I felt apart in the terminal, a WATCHER, disconnected yet so caring for the fellow humans I spied upon, is this a taste of how angels must see us? I asked myself, for these human creatures seemed so blind for the most part to being ALIVE! … breathing by rote, feeling by habit! 

     And the thing that caused me to hold my breath for a moment and feel tears tickling at my lower lashes was the change you could visibly see in the businessmen as a whole ... the younger men slim and trim and exuding their male force ... hormonal magnets, luring that lush fertile female earth essence to them, with their drive and still fresh and possible dreams shining in their eyes and demanding attention in their posture and body language. The Tigger-ness of them shining out like lighthouse beacons.  The older men at the airport were mostly overweight with bad posture and there was no light shining from within, no male force in the space their bodies occupy. What of themselves had they traded away and why had they allowed themselves to become dull-eyed, cowed and broken? 

     Could it be because home is the place of recharging, and home has become un-center for so many?  Have they all divorced from their wives and families and are unanchored without a purpose but to finish the race, not realizing they also have become a gerbil on a ticker-tape treadmill? How many I wondered had legally divorced and how many had finished the kind of divorce we ourselves, our generation, as enlightened as we THINK we are, seem to be going through and have been for several years? Was it that they had forgotten the really important stuff LIFE is made of? Never stopping to let their soul take a deep breath and pat its FULL BELLY? 

     Stride and posture. STRIVE THEN POSTURE. Where in their corporate battles had they lost their way?

      Time to board and my thoughts move on. Get in line like a good worker drone, rush then wait, rush then wait, jockey for position as if it meant Something? Look down like the others? I THINK NOT! I challenge the others to LOOK at me and connect, sadly most don't, but some do, some do. 

     We board and nestle in, I litinize and prepare. I gear it up. I give myself over to the loss of control and become a creature of the sky in my mind. I begin to just soak up the moment and notice that the hurried pace and energy and anxious gotta get there drive seems to translate from the
passengers to the plane itself and the earth falls from us quickly. I always search for landmarks as we incline up to see if I can catch a glimpse of our home, a game I play every flight, I hold my breath at the noxious fumes and wonder whether airlines will fix that ...  and then wonder which is worse for the mind, lack of oxygen or exposure to toxins? And then I wonder if that isn't something I weigh metaphorically every day for myself and my loved ones. I say my second litany prayer for the children, more silently fervent this time, and focus on getting up safe past the wind shears. And then...

     The wonders begin to unfold for me again. First the speed seems to increase as you sail skyward, the sound from the engines becomes a drone and then this worldly quiet can be sensed over the engine noise, and something primordial within me changes perspective ... As we climb into the night, airplane nose pointing west and slightly north, I watch all the fellow humans in their cars down below, hurrying for home, lines of moving light so much like incandescent ants, I watch everything getting smaller and remember how during day, during day, it becomes a patchwork coverlet & at night, at night, a silicon chipped mother board, lit as if for Christmas. I recognize this artificial order within the chaos of nature, imposed only partially on the surface by man. 

     This scene changes, as life changes, becomes something wholly different as spotty cloud cover blows in from the west.  These layers of clouds, causing the earth to pulse ...  wink ...  here ...  now gone ...  pulse ...  here ... now gone ...  now here; like life beats, like thought bulbs with a bad filament.  A bit of cloud; then lights, life pulsing ...  pulsing, like sleepy toddler eyes struggling to stay open at bed times, the slow fade into nothingness and then a sharp snap back.  This rhythm shows me human fragility even in those densely populated areas ... the feeling of cave men huddled around a fire still pervades the thoughts and emotions ... the sense of transient dominance that is really not even that, more like the spider who doesn't see the man walking and the shoe about to crush. 

     So hard to describe this change in energy. Like one of the feelings on special days you can get at church or on mountain peaks. The thought of we are not meant to visit this place, angels only ... humans not allowed ...  the clouds are underlit in spots where there are communities and it seems not right, usurpers we, gnat like nightlights in this celestial boudoir. 

     I bow my head with gratitude and silently thank them for their gracious hospitality in sharing this space ... more supernatural thinking:  this is where angels meet, and gossip is shared of us humans, this is where they scold and spy, and we are so fragile in our hubris, no wonder they help us and hold us at times, seeing us, so blind to the rightness we miss, so fevered in chasing the wrong things.

       ... and then on the horizon? Faintly, farly in the horizon I perceive a faint line, a crescent of red, gently holding, sweetly cradling the rim of the earth's horizon and that the sky there is slightly lighter ... and in that moment I realized that we were chasing the sun!! Following his golden chariot through the sky and gaining on him! And something profound glimmered for a moment about it. 

     I had the chance at a second sunset. 

     So very rare!      A second sunset from a higher plane, a different perspective. 

     The earth and sky juxtaposed differently and to my right was the shadow of the sun and to my left was the night already here, far below was mother earth and DRAG RACING on her skin is human me and human you and human us.... we are there ... angry rebellious adolescents, ignoring her rules, respecting her none. Posturing and afraid. Yet up here, for me now, my second sunset, ready to be savored like a luscious dessert...


Layers of life
sunset like life layers 
in a trifle dessert.
fertile earth, 
like crumbled chocolate brownie.
then clouds,
so different in this sky, 
like life,
so different in this moment,
Clouds, a dry meringue, 
overbaked, 
piled high in places 
and brownie 
peaking through in others,
and to the west, 
a layer 
of not 
quite 
ripe 
pomegranate glace,
the dynamic 
life affirming red 
of birth 
and blood oranges,
sky starting in then 
to amethyst jewel hues, 

shifting 
crystalline 
sifting, 
larimar blue and 
up through 
a reverse hombre 
into teal 
into midnight, 
that deep dark black-blue-green-plum shade ... 
so rich 
and dark 
and mysterious 
and haunting, 

calling for questions to be answered.  

nudging for questions to be asked.

 Annie Miller
 8:00pm Thursday, 11/21/96

Sent from my iPhone