On Simple Things
10 November, 2023
It had been one of those particularly not-great days in winter, 2023. A Tuesday, if that makes any difference.
It was a Tuesday during which nothing went right or even just quite right — work projects collapsing, clusters of small domestic fires to fight, not being able to focus on my own reading and writing. All of that sort of stuff.
To add it all, darkness crept up on me at around 5:00 pm, snatching away the small comfort that I could eke out of a bit of sunlight.
I retreated into myself for an hour or so, and was then gripped by the urge to step out on to the balcony. And there I saw it.
The moon. A large, pitted, oblate disk shining a silvery white up and in the distance. The surface so bright and so clear that I could make out individual divots on the lunar surface.
After staring at that moon for I don’t know how long, a thought leaped in my head. That thought? Maybe things aren’t so bad after all …