When the only thing that’s sure is this unsteady ground

Hein Cooper

Listening to certain types of music often gives me the same strange sensation of yearning I have when I look at the stars. As if I belong somewhere else. Or perhaps, rather, am from somewhere else. When I was a child growing up in the church, I believed this was because I belonged in heaven–out there, in the stars somewhere. Now, though, I know it’s because all the elements in my body were forged in the heavens; hydrogen and helium during the big bang, while heavier elements were made by fusion in a star’s core.

My affinity for out there is also a way to dissociate from right here. Right now.

I am trying to remember that, as Rumi says, “You are not a drop in the ocean, you are the entire ocean in a drop.”