by Laurie Wagner | Nov 20, 2017 | Blog
Jupiter and Venus A few weeks ago I read that if I got up before sunrise on the following Tuesday morning I’d be able to see Venus snuggling up close to Jupiter in the sky. Two bright orbs winking at each other – something that hadn’t happened in a long time and wouldn’t happen again anytime soon. It sounded magical – two massive, bright celestial ships passing in the night – and I wondered if I were the kind of person – if I had enough of whatever it would take to get myself up and outside before the sun rose. In the past, I’d left those kinds of jobs to my ex-husband, who cajoled me many times over our nearly 30 years together, to get up and out of a tent to see a sunrise or some other display of natural wonder. Once on a sand dune in Death Valley we had a wrestling contest where the winner would get whatever they wanted. And because Mark won, I had to run behind him down the steep slopes of a dormant volcano in the park. He told me that he’d spent two nights there once, sleeping on the floor of the volcano. He talked about the peace of the place, what it was like to be that deep into the earth. When we pulled up to the volcano the wind was howling and spitting sand in our faces. We sat in his old Toyota and watched Japanese tourists chase their hats in the wind. We laughed as they huddled behind skinny trees in the hopes of being protected. He...
