And Then.. I Dream.

Ok. I am ready to talk again. I was alternately watching NOVA and Madmen. NOVA was by far the better program. I've hesitated to say this because I have a very close colleague who writes for Madmen. I don't know anyone at PBS. I am trying to like my friend's work. Yet, I am engrossed by the info about black holes.

I find something new at Nova. Well, not new, but more detailed than what I'd heard. I like the detail. I like the science. I don't care about the 1950's anymore. Homophobic, misogynistic and something I've lived through and don't care to revisit.

I've been traveling. I've been searching. It is all internal. I am home and too tired to completely unpack, I just want to be here for a bit. I just want to do nothing.

Impossible. We all have to get up each day eventually. We all have to face the day. We have to eat. We have to relate. We can't just stay in bed and, what.. dream?

No. I have been walking.

As many people before me have discovered, the closer one gets to the mountain, the more the mountain becomes invisible.

The valley below grows. The mountain disappears. (but the valley is BIGGER!) The what we've left behind increases each season. The looking back can become too distracting. Looking ahead, we are climbing the mountain we can no longer see and all that is visible is the endless sky and (perhaps) the Mohave. The future.

I live here.

These are purely physical observations. Take from it what you will.

Ultimately, we reach the mountain top. It is unbelievably breathtaking. And.. We descend.

When I turned 40, my mother said, "Welcome to the other side of the mountain." The climb was hard, the descending has been good.

I still think about the black hole at the center of the universe. I still wonder at the nature of the universe. I have questions and answers, should anyone care to ask. I still love my work and my students, after all this time. But I do wonder. I wonder.

And then, I dream.