Something drove me off campus yesterday, an errant feeling of urgency come to find me perhaps. It was still raining, and cold-ish, with a wandering wind that seemed to reflect my unsettledness of spirit. I headed out to the hills behind campus, the old familiarity ensuring that I'd be able to walk without seeing and not risk wandering off a cliff. The churned up mud brought to mind tales of man's creation and earthly end. "Remember man that thou art dust..." "And the Lord took some clay..." I'd forgotten how different the very smell of nature is when it rains. I could smell pines, and something sweet and unseen. The stream was strangely sounding melancholy, though, which at the time did not strike me as odd, but now I wonder what was troubling it. The footprints of the hosts of hikers had been washed away, and I could loose myself in the wandering story that sprang to mind without reminders of the "real world." As I walked back, I stopped in the middle of the stream, letting the rain fall. It seemed to respond to my unknown request and gradually grew harder. Looking up to the trees and hills that surrounded me, I felt at one and the same time, completely foreign and perfectly in place. And so it goes...
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Last night I walked outside and looked up, expecting to see the same fog and clouds which have covered the sky for the last few days. It was gone. I saw the stars, clear, bright and completely unexpected. They were absolutely breathtaking. As I continued walking, I saw that the fog had ringed the campus, was climbing the hills, and filling the valley off to the west, but for whatever reason, had cleared overhead. It was like the campus was wreathed with the fog and crowned with a cap of stars. The air was cool, but not the clinging, chill damp of the earlier day. It was such a delicious feeling to wander the sidewalks (avoiding the puddles filled with drowned worms) and see the fog drifting through the trees and look up and see the stars. You could almost feel the starlight drifting down, mingling with the fog.