The Bringer of War

I don't live in the past. I know, for all the talking I do about it, you'd think I have a nice 2br house there. Honestly, though I don't live in the past. More than anything else, I'm intrigued by the things that remind me of the past, trigger wormholes of memory and take me back to a different space, time and mindset.

It's the mindset that's the most interesting part of it for me. It's also more often than not, the most vivid. I can follow my ancient logic and begin to critique it from my current mindset. Looking for flaws, or nuggets of brilliance that I'd do well to replicate. Most of the time, though I'm just amazed at the differences.

Tonight's been one of those nights. I went up to the Observatory to catch a glimpse of Mars, and the whole episode began to toss me about, like a ragdoll caught in the Bermuda Triangle of the Time-Space Continuum.

On the drive over I was, 15 and excited about astronomy, going off to IMSA to be an engineer. I was going to design rockets that would some day take us to Mars. My excitement at seeing Mars was undeniable this night. It was going to be so cool.

I got in line to see the telescope and I ended up behind a boy and his mother. He couldn't have been much more than ten, and all he could talk about was Mars. "They're trying to see if Mars has water. If it had water, then it probably had people on it. This is the closest Mars has been since the ICE AGE!!! And it's not coming this close again for a really long time. " His mother stood there, bleary eyed at the prospect of being up until God knows what hour with her child, but she seemed to understand how important this was for her son. So she soldiered on.

I thought of my parents. The late nights when I'd demand to go see some astronomical phenomenon. When they'd help me make a pinhole projector for an eclipse, and then how they wouldn't laugh as i sat out all day in my makeshift observatory, taking careful measurements of the sun. Suddenly, I was 10 and sitting out on a blanket in the front yard, giant umbrella shading me from the sun, notebooks strewn about the blanket, and my precious pinhole projector in my chubby little fingers.

It started to dawn on me that all of this, everything I have, had its seeds in those moments. The times when I reached for the stars, standing on the shoulders of giants. Well, my parents have always seemed like giants to me. Friendly approachable giants, but giants none the less. Giants in every way.

I couldn't be around strangers at this particular moment. I was 10, and it was late, and I was alone in the middle of Kansas. Well, not the middle, more like off to the corner. All the same, I had to go. On my way back to 'Turo I stopped and looked up, and there he was, Mars: The Bringer of War. He stood up in the sky looking down on me, shining away, the only thing in the sky. No amount of light pollution was going to keep him from shining his light on his sister and all of her children.

In that moment, all of the wormholes brought me back to this place, this time, and I smiled. On the way home, the radio announcer was hyping the KU/Northwestern football game this weekend. My parents used to go to Northwestern games when they were in college. My dad was DePaul student, and with no football team of his own, he adopted the Wildcats. As I grew older, wanting to be like my father in every way, I adopted the Wildcats as well. My fondest memories of going to or watching or listening to Wildcat games is the band. The Northwestern Marching Band is great, and their signature song is reserved for tense, normally defensive stands.

When the time is right, they pull out the old standard, a marching band arrangement of Holst's Mars.

It all comes back around again, doesn't it?