Tag: calvin and hobbes

Saudade – Night Skies & Inner Worlds

Saudade, Fernweh, or Anemoia?

I wanted to spend two hours admiring the November colors. It has been a beautiful few days with the weather cooling down, clouds providing beautiful skies. Yet, on recent walks, I found myself on walks as Thoreau would put it, ‘taking the village with me’.  Thinking of human follies, triumphs, setbacks, wisdom and the lack thereof, behaviors, grief, love, friendships, and so much more.

It is true that my recent walks haven’t been long enough for the human mind to ponder and wonder about the world around me. Not enough to listen to the bird’s call, or the brush of a leaf fluttering down upon me. They have been snuck in 10 minute intervals, just enough to pull my head out a little, but not enough to give me nature’s perspective which is always more expansive, forgiving and sensible.

I missed it all. I missed something that I could not name. Was it saudade (a bittersweet longing for something or someone), fernweh (longing to explore a faraway place), or could it just be anemoia (nostalgia or longing for something you never actually lived through)

The tug of an astrophile

The daylight savings time has already kicked in, which means that  the sun has been setting early. I am not a fan of this in general as I admire sunsets more than I probably should. Usually, I swap the sunset out with star-gazing, and my phone’s Skyview app is a constant companion.

So, last night, I decided to set off around our community. It had been too long without me gazing at the familiar Orion’s belt in the winter skies. I started off thinking of this world, our world, my much smaller world as usual. But then, slowly, I made myself look up, feeling the familiar tug of the astrophile in my gut.

How many worlds are out there? What are their atmospheres like? How must it feel to gaze at multiple moons from a different planet?

To be a Star!

Slowly, my eyes roved to all the familiar constellations and bright stars in the skies.

We all want to be stars in our lives but what must it be like to be an actual star? Burning bright, always shining. The nuclear fusion processes providing the energy, igniting more. How do the stars sustain their fusion processes to keep burning? I am sure we were taught all of this in school, and yet when I stop to think of it, the scientific processes are not as keen as the wonder. Maybe that is the beauty of the universe.

Each question just enough to open a quantum tunneling loop into which we can disappear for hours on end, finding ways to ignite fusion processes in our thoughts. The universe is really a fascinating place.

If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I’ll bet they’d live a lot differently.

— Bill Watterson

If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I'll bet they'd live a lot differently. #calvinandhobbes inspired tees in store now. Store Link in bio. COD Available XS-2XL Sizes

When I stepped back into the house, I felt refreshed, but felt the immediate pull of duty too. How quickly our inside and outside worlds swap in and out of our thoughts?

The stars do not think, do they? Why should we?

Comet Chasing * Chocolate Charms

The children have a shared liking for Calvin  & Hobbes. The adorable pair have been the source of many hysterical giggles between the siblings in our home. In the son’s room, there is a cartoon clip of Calvin & Hobbes that seems to tickle both his whimsy and his innate rapture and curiosity of the universe we live in.

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If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I bet they would live a lot differently  ✨- Calvin & Hobbes

A few weeks ago, I was typing out an email with the ounces of concentration I could muster at the end of a 12 meeting day, and I wasn’t exactly thinking  about 💫 comets, stars, pulsars, neutron stars, black holes, and parallel universes, when the little fellow shot into the room bursting about comets. I turned around , and my face probably looked like some of the spreadsheets I was looking at, for the son gave me a pitying look that seemed to indicate, “What good is a day when you haven’t thought of these important things?”

I laughed at the incredulity on his face: Stars, superclusters, muons traveling the speed of light, quirky  quarks are all thriving right beside his world of super-powers for super-heroes, who are incidentally gifted with important sounding superpowers such as gamma-rays and electromagneto-muon-transporters and what-not. 

“Did you  know Halley’s comet is going to come again in 40 years?” said the son still bouncing and glowing from the stash of chocolate chips he has been chipping into while reading his little books on Physics.

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“Yep! Sounds about right. I was around your age when I saw Halley’s Comet. So once in 76 years means …” and I trailed off.

“What?! You’ve seen Halley’s comet? Aww…..so lucky!” said he, and I had to laugh at his yearning. I did remember the cold nights awaiting the turn at the telescope to catch a grainy sight of the Halley’s comet. I must say that the whole experience felt worth a lot more given the rapture with which he listened to the comet sighting. I seem to remember the hot chocolate provided to the young astronomers more than the telescope and the grainy image itself.

Maybe the universe really did hear his yearnings that day, for within a few weeks, another comet came our way: the Neowise 360 comet sighting was supposedly possible from where we lived. I was so happy for the little fellow. He could barely contain the excitement in his system when his father said at the lunch table that the comet would be visible at 4:30 a.m. He got up and ran upstairs to his room. We were exchanging quizzical glances at this when he tumbled downstairs and said, “Yes! I set the alarm for 4:30 – I cannot wait to see it!”

I had to admit; the young astronomer’s enthusiasm put us to shame. So, for the next few nights, we bundled up and comedically traipsed from location to location in the wee hours of the morning looking for a comet sighting. The clouds were there in one place, some low mountains in another, and then, finally, we managed to find a plain spot in which we caught a grainy sighting.

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Knowing that we caught a fleeting glimpse of something that is not going to come by to see us for another 6800 years is strangely moving. I have to tell you though, that similar to the Halley’s comet sighting, the hot chocolate after coming back, and the the long tail of wishes accompanying the comet sighting, definitely made the hustle worthwhile. 

That morning, the rest of the comet chasers had no problem falling back to sleep, but I did – the comet had kindled dreams of long ago: dreams born of comet chasing and chocolate charms; dreams woven with the magic of stardust 💫 and comet trails – bright, shiny, sparkling, path-breaking and aspirational.

Bill Watterson was absolutely right: People who spend time looking up at the night sky do live life differently!