Heaven on Earth (Part 4)
By Frederick J. Blahnik
December 31st, 2009. 7:15 a.m. Driving north along a gravel township road in Pleasant Valley Township, Mower County, Minnesota, United States of America, Planet Earth, Milky Way Galaxy, As Yet Unnamed Universe Because the Existence Of Alternative Universes Can Never Be Empirically Proven. The road itself is a veritable skating rink, totally glazed over with residual ice left behind from the great Christmas Day meltdown, when an epic blizzard long forecast for that day degenerated into a rainy, soggy mess in the face of uncharacteristic, mid-thirties temperatures.
Just off to my left lies a great, majestic orb hanging in the New Year’s Eve day sky—a gargantuan “blue moon”, the second full moon of this December. One stares at it—fully mesmerized—wondering with equal parts awe and bewilderment how something so typically small and self-effacing could now be this gigantic and overpowering. The morning air is crisp and pregnant with the sounds of winter as I carefully glide down “325th Street”–which in reality is nothing more than a narrow, nondescript, gravel township road–towards a “T” intersection with its big cousin, blacktopped Mower County Road #6.
And that spectacular blue moon continues to dangle low in the northwestern sky, barely clearing the flat horizon, seemingly begging everyone on Earth to indulge in her once-in-a-year pageantry. And what a unique day Ms. Luna has chosen to spotlight!
For this is no ordinary day, not at all, not by any means…….
A new year awaits less than twenty four hours hence, and not merely a standard, run-of-the-mill year either……but a whole new decade! If one hasn’t particularly liked how the past ten years have gone, you can now—with some small degree of luck—enthusiastically enlist in the dynamic new decade parked immediately in front of each of us and steer your life in a decidedly alternative direction.
New year…….
New decade……
Same old issues and problems as before, you say…..???
Well…..does it really matter in the big scheme of things??
Truly?!?!?!
Today is undeniably a day to look forward, NOT backwards!
As I swing a right turn onto County Road #6 and head off toward another day of work in Rochester, I reluctantly bade the transcendent, once-in-a-lifetime blue moon farewell in my Elantra’s rear-view mirror. And this curious thought strikes me as I drive south on the uncommonly lonely highway: How many other wayward travelers have carried on a similar conversation with “Ms. Blue Moon” in centuries past—long before I was even born—and how many more will be asking the same existential questions as me in the distant future…..long after I am gone? Will anyone even still be around to witness the sheer beauty and peculiar awesomeness of our Universe then?!? Unlike the moon and the sun and the stars which are not saddled with organic vulnerabilities, will humankind overcome its intrinsic foibles and blunders and blatant stupidity to survive for near perpetuity as well?
Only time will tell, but today is not the day to worry about esoteric celestial matters. No, today is a day to exalt in the advent of a brand new year and a brand new decade, if only owing to the fact so many other earthlings did not experience our same level of good fortune and last long enough.
Therefore…..let the partying and merry-making officially begin!!!!!
Fred's Soapbox 