There are loops of dense, relatively cool plasma that hang over the sun on their own magnetic fields. If you look at the sun straight on they appear as dark lines on the otherwise bright surface, but if you turn and look at them against the blackness of space they are bright, burning with their own heat. Still fire, if not as hot as that of the nearby sun.
I've been thinking a lot again about Tolstoy handing his journals over to Sophie before they got married, to destroy any romantic notions she might have about him. To go into their marriage unshadowed by the specter of Tolstoy as the well-known writer. But I think that underneath that Tolstoy was afflicted with the same sort of Chekhovian talking disease as the rest of us, the same need to dump our box of toys out at the feet of the people we wish to invite in to our lives. Because we don't trust our own allure or the idea that anyone might stick around to sift out on their own the fun toys from the broken ones. Spalding Gray told us that it was almost impossible for him not to tell everyone everything, and then he jumped off of the Staten Island Ferry.
I've been thinking about mystery, is all, and whether it's better to talk myself into corners right away or to do it slowly. If I'd make it into different corners somewhere else, with faster-drying paint and fewer mousetraps.
More than that, I've been thinking of Saroyan: "In the time of your life, live — so that in that wondrous time you shall not add to the misery and sorrow of the world, but shall smile to the infinite delight and mystery of it."
I think I've been falling down on the job a little bit, lately.
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