Like A Star
Like A Star
Thoughts on the star-ness of being human and a brand new exclusive to Substack poem
Like a Star
When the moment comes,
bright like a star,
I shall be packed and ready.
Knowing what can’t be known,
feeling the tide change
like a cold creek lapping at my ankles,
hydraulic hands ready to pull me close
with wet affection
and bring me beneath
so that I may be baptized
in the only certainty these days have to offer:
change.
(Poem composed the afternoon of January 11th 2024, while riding the Fitchburg line commuter rail train from Concord to Boston.)
So far, January has been a month of re-remembering for me.
Paging quietly through the pages of high school yearbooks, re-meeting the person I was all those years ago.
Sifting through piles of long-developed photographs of my dad in the years before I was born, searching the lines of his face for anything that might let me believe that he experienced more moments of joy than worry.
Padding through my family’s farmhouse (my first home, now sold) in my mind, pacing the floors like a labyrinth, turning well-worn corners like pages of a novel I long to read the rest of but cannot, and warming my feet on the heat registers nestled into the hardwood floors, dividing the above from below, my hair blowing upwards from the forced air, making me appear an electrified being possessed of superpowers that don’t actually exist in reality.
In the course of my re-remembering, I continue to explore older reflections and essays I wrote. Five years ago this week, I gazed into the chilly January night sky and scribbled these thoughts:
Last night, walking home at almost 9:00 pm, I looked up at the sky and thought I could see the stars moving across the sky.
Tiny, bright points of light drifting towards the west. Then I realized it was actually the clouds that were moving instead.
I think my therapist might be right; there is something inside each of us that is steady and constant, like a star, and everything else is just weather, moving through. I like that.
I looked again. The stars were still staying put, anchored in their permanent impermanence. Burning brightly and burning out as I watched.
They say that we are made of stars. Maybe this is why words seem to fail me in these moments.
Moments of looking.
Moments of longing to fully grasp and express that something that lives within me but that resists form.
Moments of failing to be able to catch it in time or at all.
Maybe my star-ness means that there's something inside of me worth seeing, too.
There are so many bright lights these days. Traffic lights, phones, laptops, iPads, televisions. I often feel like there's so much we need to tune into in order to illuminate something meaningful; too many methods for trying to make magic.
Sometimes during my star gazing, I realize that Shakespeare only had stars.
Maybe our own star-ness is enough. Maybe we can tune out more often, in order to see what's inside of ourselves, waiting to be set on fire.
I am still gazing deeply (and sometimes desperately) into the winter night sky to see what I might divine of my life’s path.
What’s here right now?
What has burned out and faded?
What lurks, looms, and looks at me from just around the corner? I wish my next steps were as simple to spy as the constellations. If only the Babylonians had drawn me a map from which to navigate what comes next, whenever it comes.
I often feel like a comet, burning brightly as I move through my current landscape, afraid to stop, lest, like a comet, I cool and turn to coal.
And yet, I feel a desire to slow, to be a bit more still. Perhaps in the midst of this stillness - despite how I squirm at the thought of losing steam - I might just discover that there are stars still inside of me, whose points of light continue to shine, and from whom I might draw a sense of groundedness and energy. Perhaps there’s enough illumination to be both sturdy and set something on fire in the future.
In the meanwhile, onward I go, in hopes that I may re-remember my way to what it feels like to trust the next small step. I wish the same for you.
Friends, until I pop into your inbox next week, I hope you experience some small moments of recognizing your own star-ness, and continue pondering what it is that you might want to burn brightly in your own night sky.
Perhaps your comet will cross paths with mine one of these midnights and can breathe a small sigh of relief in the vastness of space, knowing we aren’t alone.