for a little shining

The sky is filled with light and noise, a barrage of fireworks and rescue helicopters and the nonstop glow of the city. It's hard to imagine that once upon a time you could look up and see the full glory of the heavens spinning off into infinity. Now, a few stars twinkle resolutely, as if to remind us that there are still some mysteries that haven't been solved, some dark corners left in the universe where we haven't yet explored and left dirty footprints and candy bar wrappers and brochures reading manifest destiny. Why do humans have this insatiable need to shed light on everything, to turn over every stone, as if it was really possible to gain some solid understanding of our lives and the world we live them in. Tomorrow they're crashing a large hunk of metal into the comet Tempel in order to see if the material in its core really is the stuff from which the whole Universe arose. So even the stars aren't that sacred anymore. These days not much is. It's all about control and concrete facts. Will we really be any closer to enjoying life if we wake up tomorrow and they say they've found the answers to everything?

Swinging in the hammock in our dark yard, feeling the cool summer wind stir the trees and watching a few lightning bugs pretend to be shooting stars. They haven't forgotten what the sky once looked like. Somewhere bats and trains call out to each other and in my head 1905 sings "I don't want to look at the stars with you until you can look at strangers with me." Let's look up anyway, even if we can't always bear to look at each other. Perhaps the stars can reflect just a bit of the light that we hide from each other. I am enamored by the stars, and their fading, and beautiful phrases that express that things can actually change. "Everyone is a star, and every star wants to shine." Even if sometimes we get dirty and lost and want to hide a little. It's funny, trying to figure out who the fuck we are and what we want and how to deal with being our selves in this weird and often times hositle world, this too is trying to shed light on the dark corners of our hearts, trying to turn ourselves inside out and see what we are made of. Patterns of behaviour, little fears and insecurities and annoyances. Needs to control and let go. And desires, unqunechable desires. There was a stamp Selena made for her art show yesterday which read "without desire I cease to exist." Desidero ergo sum. Is that really all that sets us apart from each other, those specific wants and needs, individual hopes and dreams that pinpoint us in the constellations of our social lives? Or is this too a myth, and do we each shine with some common light that happens to be displaced just a little in space and time so that we each appear to desire different things when really we all just want to be happy and free then die knowing that we lived our lives satisfactorally?

Or does it even matter? We are here, the night is young, the stars are fading and I know you want to shine despite all the dirt history has shoveled in your path. I don't think there are any right answers, at least not any that we glorified lemurs could understand. And certainly no easy ones. So let's just rewrite all the rules for human interaction as we come to them, one trembling heartbeat and timid smile at a time. Maybe next time we look up together we'll see two new stars flickering small and bright above the city.