change. the constant. the irony is, we are literally hurtling through space, spinning around but we manage to normalize this insane fact by twisting about in our lives, making familiar in this fishbowl, and believe you me I am as guilty as most or more, the comfort of routine even as we careen into that end, our own sunset, sometimes it feels like a cruel trick, all the people I will never have met, all the stories never said, all the lives, I was driving to pick up thai for lunch today, saw a woman walking with her child (ok, that is an assumption, I hope it was hers), pregnant with another, just two more souls on this merry go round, who will remember, even with that single strand, that common bond, to be created and torn down all in time, this time, as these words write, we share this fate, this space, this air, this dirt under our feet, unseen rays and forces pulling us in unseen ways, hurtling through space on a routine, our planet lulls us to sleep with cradle consistency, sure, the weather changes, we even have disasters and tragedy, but mostly we can gauge these things, and the longer we inhabit this terra firma we are reading them better, not very long ago a trip to Europe would have been quite the endeavor, these days the equivalent might be the moon or better, we have made a tourist attraction of one of the highest peaks around, and even travel deep underground in crystal caverns, the deepest of depths are being measured, and life, life finds the crevices, the will, the stubbornness in all these places, the will to be, and to turn the miracle into routine, round and round we go, summer, spring and fall, winter now but only up here, tilt-a-wheel, hard to wrap my head around the whole ball, I try to imagine watching it from the outside, an eye in the sky, casual observer, space is numb, quiet, cold, silent, I am missing everything, even if within the sphere I miss a ton, at least I am hearing some, some of those stories, tales, wonders, trails, smiles, laughs, lives…

whether I be a volume, a chapter, a paragraph, a word, a single letter, or a footnote to a citation, at least, in the very least I have been part of the story, of humanity.

for this meditation, mediation, consternation I choose one of my favorite ambient masters… just listen, and ponder the universe, look up at the sky and  enjoy….