Conjunction

 

December 21, 2020

Some time in the morning day it became winter, the world turning toward the light. I need that. My inner Newgrange felt the sudden warmth on its inmost wall.

Day three of thumb inflammation. It’s not steady, the pain, sometimes hardly noticeable, sometimes almost unbearable, nauseating. This makes for an interesting night of waking and falling back to sleep. Don’t think it’s gout, because touching it doesn’t make it worse. 

War with heaven last night. Had nothing to do with the thumb. 

Grumpiness dissolved when I took my new binoculars to the riverside to watch birds. There were not that many, but the highlight, and the sighting that paid for all, was bluebirds. Song sparrows dominated the thickets where I probed. 

Went out to watch the Conjunction. Caught it by looking through holes in the trees on Mount Vernon, but as the evening passed it could be seen perfectly well from my front porch. For a while I leaned against a parked car, staring through my binoculars. When I dropped the binocs, a woman was looking at me. It was her car I was leaning against, and though she wanted to leave, she was afraid to say anything. Told her about the conjunction and she looked where I was pointing, but I think she was humoring me. I assumed Jupiter and Saturn would appear to be crashing into one another, but their stately, dignified, loftily separate procession was better. I contemplated how much cold I was looking at, those unimaginably cold worlds, the frozen space between them and between them and my little self with glasses glued to my face. Maybe I should have worn a heavier jacket.