Wednesday, January 20, 2010

orion, twisted and askew

a few days ago, i asked my facebook-friends if i was seeing the same stars here in hawaii that i see at home. i was assured it was the same sky. this morning, while i drank my coffee and stared across the water, i recognized orion, off to the opposite side from which i usually see him, and lower, so that my perspective of him was slightly different. from my position, he seemed twisted and askew.

but for one brief glorious moment, what i know about geography, and what i remember seeing in the sky above pond house, merged with what was in front of me, and i had a momentary sense of the arching vault of the enormous space above my head, and the tininess of the surface of the planet on which i stand.

last night, Beloved and i had the first tiff of our vacation. it had to happen, of course, because two human beings cannot be in each other's more or less constant company for 24 hours of seven straight days without serious compromise and flexibility on both their parts.

what sparked it, you might ask?

people who don't fight over money or sex or housework can still find something to argue about, believe me. in our case, the only thing that really presses buttons is the differing values we have regarding our children. this is not uncommon, of course, but in our case, it's probably the single source of the most tension.

it's not a skirmish worth continuing, of course. what we value with respect to how we think we should raise our respective children is as much about what we each wish we had been given when we were children ourselves. neither of us is wrong... we just see things differently because we come from different places.

it's like the way i perceive orion, as twisted and askew.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.

1 comment:

rose AKA Walk in the Woods - she/her said...

I just came in from taking the dog out and was, as I do every winter evening, admiring Orion. He looked fine to me. :)

Oh - and fabulous post.