Does the wind ever feel lonely to you? In the Odyssey, Penelope "cried tears like the snow accumulated by Zephyros (West Wind) and then melted by Notos (South Wind)" as she waited for Odysseus (Roman Ulysses) to come home. The Ulysses Mission has confirmed the existence of solar wind. Before it could get close enough to the sun, Ulysses needed help from Jupiter --"All planetary orbits lie approximately in the same flat plane as that of the Earth ("plane of the ecliptic"), which is also close to the Sun's equatorial plane. To reach a position above the Sun's pole, Ulysses needed to be flung out of this plane, and it did so by first flying out to the planet Jupiter and then using that planet's gravity as a pivot while swinging into the third dimension." Jupiter was one of the most important of the Roman gods, continuously evolving with Roman needs. He first appeared as an agricultural god in charge of sun and moonlight (Jupiter Lucetius), wind, rain, storms, thunder and lightning (Jupiter Elicius), sowing (Jupiter Dapalis), creative forces (Jupiter Liber) and the boundary stones of fields (Jupiter Terminus). In the most impressive movie I've ever seen, The Falls, there is a Boulder Orchard and it has custodians. Boulders have become the custodians of the Point Beach Nuclear Power Plant, they were installed around the perimeter after September 11th as a security measure.
When I was reading that book (the global warming love story) I've been reading on the bus home tonight there was a passage about the narrator's perception of his contracting universe over the course of a day. The day he describes begins with a pre-dawn climb (with his love interest) to the top of a mountain. Reaching the top under the milky way, they watch the sun rise over a vast valley. From the wide vantage, they move to a view of their single mountain as they walk back down, down into a forest where the trees close them in even more, ending with moonless night's ride home lit by the dashboard of a car--a womblike space we all know well. Our ancestors put large rocks in circles, lit fires and came together in the center. Sometimes I just want to sleep inside the rocks listening to the fire and the voices of others, trying not to hear the wind.
I've been writing letters to someone in the margins of books lately. Letters to him and to myself. We went for a ride on a moonless night once and he talked about my eyes in the dashboard lights. We lit a fire but had to put it out because of the fire ban. Whenever wind hits something like water or trees, that lonely sound is lost in the sound of leaves or waves. In the blank spaces of the books, I've put the letters together into words, and some words into phrases: "terrible toos", "robots and aliens - references, references", "moon mirror leak closest friend", "matching red walls", "picture of chris", "wanting favorite person", "falling, etc.", "my machine--about it", "i could make (fashion?) a better man out of bananas -->2 times", "make me young...ending of novel...beginning", "assholes for eyes". We woke up the next morning because of the birds. Caw caw caw.
I wrote those letters in the margins of a Vonnegut book, it may or may not be the one in which he says, "People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order so they'll have good voice boxes in case there's ever anything really meaningful to say." Have I ever told you about the woman I follow in my neighborhood. She's constantly telling stories out loud. Sometimes I can hear what she is saying, none of the stories are very happy and she isn't aware that I am listening though I know she thinks she is talking to someone. You can tell by the way she gestures as she walks and talks. I watched a movie tonight, the Good Girl, if you must know. After walking home listening to the wind, I'm not in the right state to make any valid decisions on film merits, but have you seen it?
It might not be a good movie, but it told me a true story. It reminded me of motel confessions of first love, deep and desperate and crazy love. The kind that started with a ferryride of telling stories, moonless drives, and all eyes but broke on the first goodbye. In the movie, Tom calls himself Holden and writes himself into the role. This week I dreamt of that motel room, after the shower, and the first I love you and I woke up crying.
Dearest Jupiter, fling me into the third dimension and remind me that a rose by any other name smells just as sweet.
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