Late
this afternoon, a storm swept across my hometown.
Big
storm. Driving rain. Lightning. Thunder. The whole buckets of
water blowing sideways display.
Barely
three hours later, clear skies greeting you if you stepped outside
to look at a few stars.
Things
seem to change in an instant.
I
like to take a few moments each evening to walk around my backyard,
or even just sit down for a bit. Always have. There’s something
peaceful about shutting off the lights, perhaps grabbing a drink,
and stepping outside to gaze into the infinity of the nighttime
heavens. Something I find brilliant and awesome, and yet at the
same time intimate and comforting.
But
that’s not to say I need clear skies and the overnight to enjoy
the world around me.
We’ve
all played the games with clouds and shapes. That one’s a face…
that one a turtle.
And
there’s something to be said for watching clouds race… not move
across the sky, but move with great speed… clouds race above.
One
of the things that always occurs to me is the flip between day
and night. I find it stunning how things are so exposed around
us during the day, and concealed by the darkness of night. Why
stunning? Because as the world nearby is hidden, the universe
opens up.
Not
everything is exposed by the daylight. Not everything covered
by the night.
I’ve
tried to see where such a duality, such a flip, takes place elsewhere.
There aren’t a lot of options.
Some
would say people can be. The public persona as opposed to the
private. Others might bring up religion and philosophy, or opposites
such as good and evil, sweet and sour, heaven and hell.
But
none of those work as well. Those are creations of opposition.
Of balance. I’m not looking toward the flip of day to night.
If
I walk across my yard during the day, there are shrubs and fences.
There’s a table and chairs. There’s a shed. All of those items
from the day are still in place during the night, with possible
addition of the raccoon trying to sort out a meal from a birdfeeder
being an exception. There is no change to the design.
The
same holds true up above. Those stars and planets and galaxies
and more are there all the time. They don’t go away. They’re just
obscured by the light.
Obscured
by the light. Exposed by the dark. A true flip of thought from
the way we normally think of things, and yet not a change of any
composition.
Makes
you think.