Travelogue 891 – February 25
Sun as God
I wish it were still in fashion to worship the sun. It makes perfect sense to me. It’s the source of life, nurturing and constant. It sheds light and warmth on us all.
Okay, maybe I’ve become a little over-excited by the shining sun this morning. It’s the first sighting in days, maybe weeks. After a windy morning shower, the clouds suddenly parted. I put little Ren on the bicycle. By the time we had left behind the streets of our neighbourhood, the clouds had opened to reveal a wide, blue sky. The sun shone unimpeded over the south-eastern horizon, into our eyes. The light was startling. It was disorienting. We had to stop to admire, as though we had spotted a glowing elephant ambling down the Vierhavensstraat.
Well, why not a god? Even in the age of science, the sun is still rather mysterious. Its face is too bright to look at. Its face is ever-changing. There are storms and spots. Its mass is stable and unstable. It burns on and on, for billions of years. It throws out threads of fire millions of miles long. And waves of radiation. Recent pictures of its face show cells of fire in constant motion. (As big as France, I believe they said. Everything big is as big as France.) But we insist on simple-minded categories of animate and not, and the sun remains a thing. Even as we discover the complexity of the biosphere here on Earth. Even as here, on the tiny rock that is Earth, we find systems so interlinked in sophisticated networks, animate with inanimate, that they might seem lifelike to the superstitious. Doesn’t the line dividing life from lifeless seem a little dated, reminiscent of a diagram from a 1950s textbook?
Being that as it may, it seems as though European cultures favoured storm gods like Zeus and Thor. I suppose that’s understandable, given the climate. But storm gods were gods to fear, rather than gods to admire and love. That’s a pity.
The clouds are already gathering again. By afternoon, it will be raining. We had our moment of joy. We were reminded of the power of the sun, and then, just as quickly, of the power of the storm.
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
Sunday, February 23, 2020
Travelogue 890 – February 23
Dear Diary
February is a short month, fleeting and tumultuous. It enters with authority; it comes as a challenge. It occupies its place in the calendar like a Bonaparte. February commands. It marches us through marshy territory. We are only reluctant and hungry troops who must be led into the more hopeful terrain of March. That will mean facing into the wind. When there’s no wind, there is rain. When there’s no rain, there is fog. After a quiet night, the morning comes with a new wind.
It’s the middle of the night. It’s raining outside. I’m in need of consolation. At this hour, this quietest hour of the night, I can hear the muttering of the ghosts.
I’ve been reading the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. I read a little bit every evening, just a ‘verse’ or two. It’s a book of consolations, written by a Roman emperor nearly two thousand years ago. It was written to console. But it was not written for any reader. It was written to console an emperor.
It’s an enigmatic book, written as a personal journal. That’s my interpretation, anyway. There isn’t a lot offered for context. It was passed along through history in twelve books of somewhat random notes, and it was studied as a philosophical text. Aurelius was looked upon as a philosopher, even in his own day. His reputation in intellectual history rests upon this volume. I wish I knew the story of the manuscript, how it survived from Aurelius’s tent, or palace, to make it into the hands of scribes. It’s probably something as banal as a play by his son for reflected glory. Or perhaps the vain emperor passed his notes among friends on the rare occasions he was in Rome.
Aurelius was, in fact, a warrior emperor, spending much of his reign in the field, marching against foes of the empire. That wasn’t unusual in that era. I can see how it added to the mystique of an emperor. Who wants a stay-at-home emperor? This was Julius’s mould, set in the conquests of Gaul and Egypt. Who wanted him languishing in Rome?
Aurelius’s notes are repetitive, as any personal diary must be. Much of it is Stoic philosophy, calls to duty and reminders of mortality, sounding like this one I read in the evening: “How many whose praises used once to be sung loudly are now relegated to oblivion; and how many of the singers themselves have long since passed from our sight!”
Dear Diary
February is a short month, fleeting and tumultuous. It enters with authority; it comes as a challenge. It occupies its place in the calendar like a Bonaparte. February commands. It marches us through marshy territory. We are only reluctant and hungry troops who must be led into the more hopeful terrain of March. That will mean facing into the wind. When there’s no wind, there is rain. When there’s no rain, there is fog. After a quiet night, the morning comes with a new wind.
It’s the middle of the night. It’s raining outside. I’m in need of consolation. At this hour, this quietest hour of the night, I can hear the muttering of the ghosts.
I’ve been reading the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. I read a little bit every evening, just a ‘verse’ or two. It’s a book of consolations, written by a Roman emperor nearly two thousand years ago. It was written to console. But it was not written for any reader. It was written to console an emperor.
It’s an enigmatic book, written as a personal journal. That’s my interpretation, anyway. There isn’t a lot offered for context. It was passed along through history in twelve books of somewhat random notes, and it was studied as a philosophical text. Aurelius was looked upon as a philosopher, even in his own day. His reputation in intellectual history rests upon this volume. I wish I knew the story of the manuscript, how it survived from Aurelius’s tent, or palace, to make it into the hands of scribes. It’s probably something as banal as a play by his son for reflected glory. Or perhaps the vain emperor passed his notes among friends on the rare occasions he was in Rome.
Aurelius was, in fact, a warrior emperor, spending much of his reign in the field, marching against foes of the empire. That wasn’t unusual in that era. I can see how it added to the mystique of an emperor. Who wants a stay-at-home emperor? This was Julius’s mould, set in the conquests of Gaul and Egypt. Who wanted him languishing in Rome?
Aurelius’s notes are repetitive, as any personal diary must be. Much of it is Stoic philosophy, calls to duty and reminders of mortality, sounding like this one I read in the evening: “How many whose praises used once to be sung loudly are now relegated to oblivion; and how many of the singers themselves have long since passed from our sight!”
Thursday, February 13, 2020
Travelogue 889 – February 13
The Colour of Ciara
Baby and I had penance to pay this morning. When Storm Ciara blew through town at the beginning of the week, we took a pass. I wasn’t going to take her to school on the bike in winds of 45K per hour or more. So we indulged in public transit.
Sunday night had seen winds measured at 100-120K per hour. We left the house on Monday morning to see the damage. It didn’t seem we’d been hit too hard. There were twigs and branches strewn everywhere, but no trees were down. Frankly, the debris from New Year’s was worse. But fireworks wouldn’t have downed the art piece on the roof of the building next to my workplace. The piece was simply the date of the building’s completion written out in neon several stories high. Yesterday, I noticed it was tipped over.
It’s become clear that Ciara was not going to be an isolated event. It’s been such a mild winter, I’ve become complacent. Vaguely grateful, but complacent. No, the winds were not going to abate completely. Neither was the rain. And then we found out about Storm Dennis, due at the end of the week, another bout of heavy wind and rain.
We woke to rain this morning, and we realized there was no reprieve this time. We would have to face the weather this time. We would have to be tough Nederlanders. ‘Just get on with it’ is the national slogan.
We dressed Baby in her pink rain overalls. I ran up and down the stairs looking for my rain gear. How does everything get spread around the flat like this? We were finally ready, several layers of weather gear covering us, Baby’s helmet in place. Once we were outside and under way, it didn’t seem so bad. But the steady wind was colder than the five degrees or so Celsius in air temperature, and my hands were raw before we were halfway. I was cycling into the wind, and it felt like Baby had gained ten kilos overnight.
Baby is the shy type. She didn’t want anyone to see her in her pink rain pants. She insisted we strip them off in the hallway, out of sight. My fingers were useless, and these pants were nearly impossible to get off around her shoes. By the time I got her seated in class, I was exhausted. Juf Jessica, may I just stay and colour? ‘Juf’ is the common title for female teachers, short for Juffrouw, or miss. She would have smiled in that sweet and commanding way, and I would have had to go.
Baby engaged with her colouring task this morning. Her mama paints, and so Baby is quite enthusiastic about colouring. This morning she was asking what colour her new shoes were. When she asked, she needed precision. Brown? No, bronze. She was asking if they might not be ‘burnt umber’. Um, you’d better ask your mum.
The Colour of Ciara
Baby and I had penance to pay this morning. When Storm Ciara blew through town at the beginning of the week, we took a pass. I wasn’t going to take her to school on the bike in winds of 45K per hour or more. So we indulged in public transit.
Sunday night had seen winds measured at 100-120K per hour. We left the house on Monday morning to see the damage. It didn’t seem we’d been hit too hard. There were twigs and branches strewn everywhere, but no trees were down. Frankly, the debris from New Year’s was worse. But fireworks wouldn’t have downed the art piece on the roof of the building next to my workplace. The piece was simply the date of the building’s completion written out in neon several stories high. Yesterday, I noticed it was tipped over.
It’s become clear that Ciara was not going to be an isolated event. It’s been such a mild winter, I’ve become complacent. Vaguely grateful, but complacent. No, the winds were not going to abate completely. Neither was the rain. And then we found out about Storm Dennis, due at the end of the week, another bout of heavy wind and rain.
We woke to rain this morning, and we realized there was no reprieve this time. We would have to face the weather this time. We would have to be tough Nederlanders. ‘Just get on with it’ is the national slogan.
We dressed Baby in her pink rain overalls. I ran up and down the stairs looking for my rain gear. How does everything get spread around the flat like this? We were finally ready, several layers of weather gear covering us, Baby’s helmet in place. Once we were outside and under way, it didn’t seem so bad. But the steady wind was colder than the five degrees or so Celsius in air temperature, and my hands were raw before we were halfway. I was cycling into the wind, and it felt like Baby had gained ten kilos overnight.
Baby is the shy type. She didn’t want anyone to see her in her pink rain pants. She insisted we strip them off in the hallway, out of sight. My fingers were useless, and these pants were nearly impossible to get off around her shoes. By the time I got her seated in class, I was exhausted. Juf Jessica, may I just stay and colour? ‘Juf’ is the common title for female teachers, short for Juffrouw, or miss. She would have smiled in that sweet and commanding way, and I would have had to go.
Baby engaged with her colouring task this morning. Her mama paints, and so Baby is quite enthusiastic about colouring. This morning she was asking what colour her new shoes were. When she asked, she needed precision. Brown? No, bronze. She was asking if they might not be ‘burnt umber’. Um, you’d better ask your mum.
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