The Weight of the Sun
Nov 21, 2018·Tap to summarize
Illustration: Ansellia Kulikku / source image: The Public Domain Review. Listen: Your browser does not support the audio element.Click here for the mp3. I like the 4 a.m. feedings best, tilting the rocking chair back and forth with my toes, observing how the invisible lines of our dark yard rest against the lines of other yards—of other lives. Before the sun rises, this small wedge of the world momentarily in agreement: everyone on this block wishing for sleep, for peace, for the coming day to be better than the last. I like thinking how the grass growing a thousandth of an inch every fifteen minutes is celebrating something as I celebrate solving small mysteries like learning that a red fox is the one who flattens the path through the lawn. Mainly I like pretending I am the only one awake, the only one seeing the world at this instant. The navy sky, thick as blood, is my blood, as the fracture of stars, bright as raw bone, is my bone. I like being reminded that we all began in dark and stars, that the carbon, nitrogen and oxygen in our bodies was created 4.5 billion years ago in another generation of stars, that somehow if we could weigh the sun, all rising 418 nonillion pounds of it, we’d see that strength is never needed to begin the day. No, it’s something else. Behind every square of light flipped on, someone is standing or slouching, stretching or sighing, someone is covering her face or uncovering it, someone is thinking, Today, I will I will I will….
