Sky

I think it was in 1999 when I broke up with my second wife, and went to live by myself in a tiny studio apartment in the country, that I started to become aware of how close to the sky I was. Every day my eyes instinctively sought the contours of the surrounding hills. Even at night I continued to trace them in my mind. They led me on. Pointed me to the next thing. Which was not a “thing” at all. It was always much too far for the mere mind to follow. Since then I’ve often felt this sense that I’m living on the edge of the sky, that I might fall into it and be lost (that perhaps inevitably I must someday). I’ve gotten used to this feeling by now, a kind of chronic existential vertigo. And looking back on my life I understand now that I have always lived this way (though I couldn’t see it before, when I was young), i.e., that all along I have been this tiny speck clinging to the edge of all that limitless, beautiful blue. And so has everything and everyone else been clinging to this edge along with me. And that we will enjoy living in this precarious position as best we can (and there is much to enjoy about it!) until it is time for us to go.