venusian

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

 
I didn't know what to expect as I left work to head down to the park, but saw that the clouds had begun to dissipate around the sun. It's once in every hundred years or so that this thing happens and while my Skeptical Friend along for this venture might scoff, I did send a quick prayer up that morning for a clear sky that night instead of the usual clouds of Clevelandia, and behold it was answered.

An evening of science and slackitude commenced, of looking through telescopes at sunspots and the corona of flares shooting out from the sun, gazing through a viewer that blotted out everything except the light so intense, and everyone was so friendly around us overgrown straunge folk. Maybe there was a sense of geekness solidarity in that camaraderie that I don't find at most events involving people I don't know who don't necessarily know each other. Bridget says and shows it well here. People seemed smart and nice and that's not something I always see, and while I have little faith in humanity, the interactions that we had with everyone kind of made me feel warm inside, the way that people shared their super expensive telescopes with us and showed us things.

I saw Saturn tiny in the viewfinder, the orb a hundred times the size of my planet a mere inch across, its rings and all. The sense of near-infinity and the vastness of space hits me so hard, the smallness and the awe.

We made a night of it, walked around the park, drank whiskey out of a flask on the beach, tossed a frisbee in the darkness, sat on the rocks and watched the water and stargazed. We probably would have built a fire out of the driftwood if we knew we wouldn't be hassled by The Man, and about a half hour before midnight I took leave to drive home and fall promptly asleep, having been up since 4am. I woke up this morning still feeling a little euphoric and full of wonder, falling in love with all these things I loved as a child once more with the same sense of amazement.

When I consider your heavens,  
    the work of your fingers,  
the moon and the stars,  
    which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them,    human beings that you care for them...