Of White Clouds and Tesseracts

I woke up every single hour last night.

Every. Fucking. Hour. 

Hoping for victory.

Hoping for hope. 

Instead, I woke up sweating and to a gut punch, a dull ache, and this dread that permeated down to and then into my bones.

I let the hot, hot water pour over me in the shower, washing none of my feelings down the drain.

Ate mac and cheese for breakfast because I heard someone once told me it was one of the best comfort foods. But of course, it wasn't my mom's. 

So there was little comfort.

Got in my car, pushed play on my PinkPonyClub playlist (with a hint of T. Swift and Gracie Abrams on it), and drove slowly through the fog, 15 miles to work. 

Even Chappell and friends couldn't drown out this heaviness, this grief, this numbness. 

Along the way I imagined meeting a friend at the stop sign, getting out, and hugging and crying with her. 

The fog and sun played hide and seek all along the way to work and I wondered if they were mirroring our country—playing the roles of both friends and enemies.

And then I saw it: A poof. 

A small cloud dancing, then disappearing, across the highway in front of me.

And my mind went down the the rabbit hole in my ADD mind to Magellanic Clouds/the White Clouds — the first poet wrote:

السحب البيضاء

 -- two irregular, spiral dwarf galaxies only visible in the southern hemisphere. 

Visible to the unaided eye, I stared at them forever a week ago on a ship in the fjords of Chile and Argentina then read about them finding out that they were first documented by Persian sailors in the first nautical poem ever known to be penned. And then that they seem to have traveled close to our galaxy. Galaxies travel? Maybe I’d read that incorrectly…. But they looked as described: like white clouds. In a dark night sky, you’d think they were right above your head a few hundred feet. An optical illusion of sorts. 

Everything in the sky we see is in our own galaxy except for a few celestial beings.  Two of these are these galaxies.

This was the first time in my life someone had told me that I could see other galaxies with my naked eyes.

I can see something outside of my little corner of the universe?

Mind. Blown.

This morning? I wanted that poof of a cloud that danced in the Bella Vista fog to be like the tesseract in A Wrinkle in Time. 

Like the gravity laws and love that were defied in Interstellar. 

A moment and ability and place to escape. 

Would I find what I need in that uncharted territory? 

Those barely explored galaxies?

Would I slip into one of their black holes?

Would I find a parallel universe?

One where everyone loves and is kind and works together for the good of all?

One where no one felt what half of our country is feeling right now?

One where we are free to be who we were born to be?

Or would I find as much vitriol as I have found here?

I should hope not.

So for a moment, my mind escaped and believed Mac and cheese would comfort me and that the White Clouds were in fact that—clouds so close, like the hope I had this week, that I could almost touch. 

For a moment I, well, my imagination, explored the part of the Cosmos that I think, perhaps, we all dream of, but seem to care little about fixing on our own planet: a place overflowing with love, gentleness, kindness, peace.

Yes, for a moment, I chased down the thought that Heaven is a place on earth, but maybe not our earth.

I suppose that is also what is wrong with a lot of this world right now: people not taking the time to explore and adventure and learn and be open to possibilities and places they never could have imagined.

Robert Frost believed that “Earth's the right place for love, I don't know where it's likely to go better.”

But I wonder if he ever had the chance to stargaze upon White Clouds...

After all, Alice in Wonderland taught us that “we all want a magical solution to our problem, and everyone refuses to believe in magic.”

I'm not sure on this day I believe in anything, but I do believe Anne Frank when she wrote, “Despite everything, I believe people are truly good at heart.”

I believe in my ability to imagine other worlds both here and there.

I believe in galaxies I can and cannot fathom.

And I believe in love.

——————-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author’s Notes below: 

  الأعبار or السحب البيضاء

(the white clouds or the cows as noted by the poets). 

 http://judy-volker.com/StarLore/Myths/MagellanicClouds.html 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magellanic_Clouds 

The system, which is located in the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, is composed of a hot, blue star with 25 times the Sun's mass and a black hole, which is at least nine times the mass of the Sun

written Nov 2024