Eyes to the sky.

Last night my husband and I grabbed a thick sleeping bag, laid it out on our driveway, curled up under blankets, and watched the sun cast the earth's shadow on the moon. We were quiet, staring up at the reddening moon, while a cool winter wind blew in the first official bit of winter. The leaves in the tree above us were deep orange and made that pleasing shhhhh sound with every gentle gust.

It's not often that one can get a sense of where they really are in the universe, to have an idea of the inner workings of the cosmos, to see if only for a moment how it all matches up. To witness that perfect symmetry.

It made me feel content to essentially close out 2010 with such a sighting. I hope to usher in 2011 in much the same way: feeling the alignment of the great big world around me, catching a glimpse of my place in it, eyes to the sky, always.

Do I dare disturb the universe?

I get random lines from random poems stuck in my head, usually because I like the cadence of the words, the rhythm of their arrangement. These chosen lines that stay with me stay because of how they settle into my brain, comfortable in the folds, like they were always part of me, words that keep the synapses firing.

One set of those lines comes from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot. The lines are, "Oh, Do not ask, 'What is it?'/Let us go and make our visit."

The thing is, I haven't read the whole poem in YEARS. I recently came back to it and was kind of knocked over by it, particularly this excerpt:

:::

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair -
[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin -
[They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all: -
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measure out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

:::

(Read the whole thing here.)

I love, love the lines:

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

But the whole thing, to me, speaks to our place in the grand scheme of the universe - that we live our lives almost in an unreality, chasing the ethereal but tethered by tangible things (tea and marmalade and perfumes and downy brown hair on an arm). These little things are our beauty, and our undoing. What we live for and what we fight against all at once - chasing mermaids "Till human voices wake us, and we drown."

Perfection.

Lovely Music: Kele Goodwin

For when you have a moment alone in the car and you are lost in your thoughts. For calming kids at bedtime. For when you need a good, deep breath, and your soul is all curled up and tired. For cold winter days: bare trees and gray skies, leaf-littered streets and warm coffee.