ad astra per aspera

There is that odd place between finishing writing things and starting new ones when there exists a kind of temporary peace.

It is a peace hard-won and transient, for while you pause to catch breath and just rest, you know that at any moment the ideas will come again, sometimes announcing themselves like lightning in the distance, sometimes rushing to engulf you in a glorious embrace, sometimes buzzing around like a refractory mosquito.

At the place outside and between endings and beginnings, I’ve noticed that the stars are brighter and somewhat closer. It is an illusion, of course. After all, I am still in my room, on my bed, drenched in sweat that the warm air does not nothing to relieve.

But I can see them so clearly, bereft of any obscuring clouds.

And I resign myself to the fact that I must try to reach them, for beauty cannot go undisturbed and undisturbing.

I listen to an idea (its scratchy voice interrupted by explosive guffaws), empty my head and begin writing. Soon, other ideas come, drawn to my open helplessness, rushing to fill in the nooks and crannies of my head – caterwauling, singing, gesticulating, fucking, praying, in a cascade of blurs that is too dangerous to watch all at once.

And through the cacophony, I look up and see my never-changing goals, twinkling in a tremendous sky.

Through my fingers, a piece of peace.

Through my endeavors, the stars.