My Green Little Galaxy

Putting my son to bed is a job all on its own, as most parents of a small fry will tell you. It’s both a treasured time, as well as a gentle type of torture in certain instances. Sometimes I’m just too exhausted by that hour to take care of someone with any true zeal, and sometimes he’s so wired he has to flop around in bed and and tell me special “secrets” for what feels like eternity until his mind finally kicks the can down the road. It can be both my most favorite thing in the world, and also the activity I look forward to least in the day. The split personality of parenting is hard to explain. It’s often two, three, or four seemingly unrelated feelings colliding into each other; morphing from one dimensional state to the next and back again as quickly as they spark.

Bedtime with my guy has changed a bit recently, thanks to Santa. What used to be a calming, dark bedroom is now a calming, dark bedroom with glow-in-the-dark planets and stars on the wall. Every night when we turn out the lights, and we’ve exchanged all of our kisses and hugs and secrets, I sit in the chair next to his bed and wait for him to fall asleep. There is nothing more serene than gentle lullaby music and a child unaware of the world’s shock sleeping close by, let me tell you. It can quiet even the most adulting mind if you can actually allow for the peace.

The lights go out, and I take my post. I lean into the arm of the reading chair and I take my gaze towards my new galaxy: Saturn, Jupiter, Earth, the moon…all familiar and scattered around in an artificial radiance that really knows how to draw me in. For a moment I wonder if they’re too bright for my little guy to sleep, but I quickly realize he’s on his own little planet. Shifting around and rambling adorable nonsense about his day. The pre-sleep dance. I am perched up on planet Mom, staring into my radium planets and stars about to do my own ridiculous dance. Their hypnotizing glow offers an idealized version of space compared to its chaotic truth. No massive explosions, toxic gases, or careening rocks that can change the trajectory of time. No mysterious unknowns, or endlessness. No signs of life. Only an inviting glow, a two dimensional existence, and my mind that’s ready for its nightly expedition of “what went wrong in my life, and how can I fix it”.

I think a lot of people have this same feeling once the sun goes down and the world gets more quiet. It’s why they say to never make any decisions after sunset. It feels like my mind’s way of untying the knots of the day and categorizing what aches to be tended to once the light returns. This little warm galaxy seems to put me right in that contemplative space, but with the sneaky maneuver of a grandmother who traps you in conversation because she knows you can’t leave. Forcing me to sit in the same room with someone I should connect more with. In this case it’s me.

My first stop on my contemplative journey in little green space is a wound I’ve scanned over a zillion times, but it doesn’t ever seem to lose it’s sting. A treasured family relationship, still fraught. Moments in time that passed by like a flaming rock that I can never go back and divert. A crater that never sees the healing motion of atmosphere, or an Atlanta pothole that’s been spackled for the 8th time: Some things just leave a hole. I seem to always stop there first so I can go over each second of that meteoric event and review my options one more time, until I land on the inevitable; there’s nothing to fix.

As much as I miss someone, I can’t make them miss me.

I slap a little heart shellac on it and drift my way to the next world: The current mystery that is my entire creative career.

A few months ago I applied for a job that I wanted very badly. A “dream job”. After years of working for myself as a designer I found a job description that felt like it was laid out just for me, and low and behold! They actually got back in touch with me. The shockwave of the century, as far as my tiny world is concerned, and I have been fully consumed in the interview process for the past month. Working and reworking a sample project in order to showcase my skills. Without meaning to, though, I have completely dropped several elements of familial work. This newsletter, for one.

The time to be patient, and the desire to run away dreaming, is a swirling force that I’ve never really known how to reconcile too well.

I say “dream job” in quotes because of course, jobs exist in the real world and therefore are not the material of dreams. Not even when you work for yourself. But, they can bring new possibilities. They can sometimes morph as one of the good fruits that you pluck from your dream canopy; a supportive change that hopefully won’t totally spoil in the ectoplasm on its way to reality.

The stars continue to twinkle in their soft yellow green luminescence.

The next few thoughts ping pong from one planet to the next. Hopes of a better livelihood, dreams of my first experience recording an album, and the gift of a vacation with my guys; all of these thoughts emerge from Jupiter. Guilt about not working enough, uncertainty about how to work, all the things that need to be fixed around the house but can’t be; those live on Saturn. The awareness of my age, questionable health, and time slipping by quicker each day is a continuous wind. It dances between the stars and the Sun that keeps my son company at night.

I look over and realize my little guy is finally asleep. His leg lets out a little twitch letting me know he’s gone beyond the little glowing galaxy in his room and he’s onto a more shapeless one. I decide to sit a little longer and let myself dream a little deeper too, holding his hand. The light of the planets and stars keeps shining and I let myself get to the place that isn’t about me. I feel the sharpness of time and daily existence envelope me and then expand out. I can see everyone and every meteoric event happening in this moment and it makes me close my eyes. No more glowing stars from Santa in sight, but there is still the slight knowing of something hopeful, even in the dark.

I spend a lot of time thinking about magic and wondering what it is. How can a universe full of immediate danger and zero care for whether we exist or not, also have intermittent feelings of magic?

The word “magic” might be overused, and for some it may have lost its lustrous meaning, but for me it’s the thing that keeps me lit. It’ll always have meaning, even when I’m feeling lost in the dark. It’s a glimmer into space. A sensation of slipping sand, not meant to stay in one place for too long. Simply a tiny evidence of time folding in on itself; the past, present, and future passing through each other through the form of a familiar object, a song that taps you in the underbelly, the smell of honeysuckle in swampy summers, or the reemergence of the moon’s silvery face when you’re feeling alone in the woods. A common thread of existence that surpasses all human tedium, worries, and pain. The flattening of worlds into a single glowing moment that breaks a part our own, and we can briefly see an expanse.

The glow-in-the-dark planets and stars offer me small piece of magic during a time when I’m my most tedious and worrisome.

I slowly stand up and tip toe to the door. I still wonder if the the glowing is a bit too bright for my guy's sleep. One more worry for the road.

I quietly close the door behind me with a tiny *click* and step back into the real galaxy. The one with the explosions and harsh elements and the bills. The place where all my favorite people are, and my next big unknown experience. I can still see the glow of the stars and Jupiter, Venus, and Neptune in my mind but it’s fading as I get farther away. I know Earth is still floating so small in the vastness of that little wall, and I know I’ll be back there again soon. Back in the gentle green universe where I can offer up my daily worries and dreams through the magic of an artificial glow.

Trying my best to let it all go until sunrise.