Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

—“Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost (1923)

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Dear Kate,

How the weather determines how we feel...but how?

The weather is but a layer of reality above us, close enough to close us in, far enough--if our spirit is to ascend to the height, to mean no more than an atmospheric concealment of what is always there, behind and above it all to keep things running: the Sun. 

We could run away with that knowledge and worship the Sun, cherish it as a beautiful accident, or, as all enlightened, rational human being should, keep giving ourselves reasons to peel off the layers of reality that are weighing us down, especially on a rainy day (like today in Vancouver).  However, as it is, our model of the Universe shall forever be geocentric, ourselves desiring and hating alternatively and simultaneously, fire and/or ice, never without tears, handling the sphere of our life the onion.

Rained-in lovers feel no rain, comfortably housed in each another, would practically walk into morning mist to bring down the curtain.  Two haters together, though, would find no house big enough to contain them both, no Universe good enough, no layer to peel to reveal anything different in each other, the world; no new morning, always the same night.

"What would Mrs C do?"  I found myself asking the question this morning, about my neighbor who no longer is.  What would she do on a rainy September morning, to her garden, around her house, where would her mind wander to, when her feet could no longer carry her?  There is no didactic use to me in answering any of these questions, but a kerygma, a simple proclamation of who she was and still is to me: my neighbor.  Every wayward blade of grass was brought back to my side with a broom, last Saturday right after I mowed the part of my lawn adjacent to hers: just the way Mrs C wanted it.

As if she was still there.

Yours, Alex