One of the less obvious differences (until you think about it) about my life here in the southern hemisphere, compared to my home in the northern hemisphere, is the night sky.
Now I'm not the worlds greatest astronomer, but back home I could recognise the basic constellations: The Plough., Orion, etc. But since leaving the UK last November I haven't seen a single one of them.
The sky here is completely different, but no less beautiful. The first constellation you learn down here is the Southern Cross, the emblem of the southern skies. Also commonly visible is the Milkyway, a beautiful cloud-like mass floating across the sky.
But what really brought these differences home was that last night there was a total lunar eclipse. Obviously we have these in the northern hemisphere too, but as I sat watching the shadow of the earth make the moon glow red I couldn't help thinking that back home it was the middle of a summers day. And that made home seem a very long way away.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
When I was 8, I was a year into boarding school, and trying to figure out a way to beat ‘lights out’ – bugger me if I haven’t spent the best part of the rest of my life doing the same thing with all the seemingly arbitrary rules I encounter – anyway, we had a history teacher, who also ran the astronomy club, and he was in recruiting mode, and cos I could stay up after curfew, I joined that happy cosmos band….Well, first night he took us onto our playing fields (public school obviously) and asked us to lie on our backs (bad news if you buy into what’s said about public school), and then asked, what for me was a life changing question, ‘who would like to travel in time?’ – well, there was the ‘so what’ moment, but I along with the rest played ball; no ‘lights out’ for us, so why not!?
He then picked out, of all things you could have mentioned Whitters, the ‘plough’ and its ‘handle’ star and waited while we all located the said object – anyway, when we had, he then pointed out that we were indeed time travellers – yeah, you got it, there I was looking back, oh I’ve forgotten now how long, so many light years; seeing the place as it was years ago and that one moment laid the foundations for the way I ‘perceive’ that kind of thing (and OUR place in things) ever since; a truly life changing event! Incidentally, four years later it was me who found him cold and dead in the Master’s common room at the end of a night duty – he was a real Mr Chips, he gave me the foundations for a love of history, politics and reason; most importantly, the opportunity to ‘see’ and I never did have the 'awareness' at the time to thank him.
Anyway, where am I going (happy tabs and all); distance can be measured in so many ways – I’m 40 minutes from Paddington, I’m a day away from Australia and I’m 13 billion light years or so from the farthest galaxy we can see – but like you say, when one really considers the distances that really matter – they are measured by how far away the things what we personally miss might be (and so be it) – and in your case they're a day away (along with a year of growth type stuff) – worse case scinario, imagine being an alien from Alpha Centrui, without a warp factor 10 ‘virgin’ to whisk one home, then you’d really be fukt - as your post demonstrates, its a luxury to 'miss' what you can/want return to, especially with the certainty that it will be there and waiting.
dt
Don't be soft "Whitters"!
You're are almost at the end of a journey and now you crying to get to the finish line?
This time next year, you'll be longing to spread your wings again, missing the chance to be the 'real' you again.
Enjoy it whilst you can because time is running out and you'll soon be back to your regular life!
Oh and 'dt', whoever you are, very philosophical, maybe you should start a blog of your own?
The last few nights with the full moon I too have been looking up across our 'big skies' in Norfolk, thinking of Karen so far away yet so close to coming home.
I detect a little home sickness now, nothing wrong with that, it just shows that her life back here wasn't such a bad endurance and we should all be pleased for her for that possible realisation.
There's nothing wrong with a 'regular' life, or a little 'softness', it's back to the cliches again - life is what you make it, wherever you may be.
Post a Comment