JANUARY 27, 2021 –
Yesterday was crowded with work-related demands, routines of daily existence, and more “breaking news.” I couldn’t enjoy the sun-filled outdoors until it was no longer sun-filled. Not until 9:30 in the evening did I grab skis and escape.
In the dark, the “banana-peel” ice on alley and sidewalks was too treacherous for walking the urban mile that separates our home from “Little Switzerland.” This shaky rationalization cratered when bright moonlight burst through the moonroof as I backed out of the garage. But momentum is powerful, especially when your car thermometer reads 15F.
I had the place to myself—in contrast with the day before, when I’d ventured out at 4:00 and encountered a few dozen varsity high school x-c skiers zooming around the course; people on snowshoes walking their dogs across the Bernese Oberland; a downhill ski class in session on the backside of St. Moritz; and a few geezer-skiers swishing along rutted tracks. (Pandemic worries anyone?) I surrendered after logging half of my intended vertical distance (my workout gauge—instead of time or linear distance).
It was a different picture yesterday evening. The moon shone overhead. Magnified by last weekend’s fresh blanket of snow, our closest celestial escort lit up the entire (abandoned) “country.”
As I skated up and skied down the freshly groomed backside of St. Moritz, I admired splendiferous views. All cares dissipated into the calm, cold air. On each descent—a series of measured parallel turns on my “skinny skis”—I danced a waltz. My thoughts were in the “there and then.”
In the rarified “mountain” air, however, my thoughts soon wondered . . . afar.
Moon and stars, I mused, were created for more than navigational assistance, tidal effects, our aesthetic gratification, and . . . illuminating my way up and down snow-covered hills. Heavenly objects (besides our practical, life-giving sun) were devised to give us human slobs a frame of reference for all the nonsense and minutiae of the world we’ve made out of planet earth.
As we grapple with self-inflicted problems, we need to know that in the grander scheme of things, there’s, well . . . a grander scheme; one of universal truth embedded in “God” . . . I mean, GUT (“Grand Unified Theory”) or, just plain, “GUT Gott!” as it might be said in German (after all, I was in a mostly German-speaking canton of “Little Switzerland”).
The urge to understand moon and stars (i.e. GUT) is as powerful as the forces behind them. This urge is our ace in the (black) hole. Sure, as we prove with each spin of own celestial globe, we’re perpetually stir-fried in the grease of our own creation. But the sides of the wok aren’t so high that we can’t peer beyond the rim of our limitations. Therein—or rather, thereout—lies our ability to think, to imagine beyond the bubbling fat of our troubled existence.
“I think, therefore I am free”—Cogito, ergo sum liber—to expand on Descartes’s contribution to philosophy.
Now back to stir-fried “reality”: work-related email.
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
