Passion

I have tasted the beauty of the world now as an adult, and I am transfixed by it. I always wanted to be an attorney, and two dropouts later, I found myself a working paralegal– still chasing a middle school dream. It is an accomplishment, and I am proud of it, that I stayed the course and now have a steady job with benefits that can carry me through to retirement.

I guess I saw beauty in the law once, for it is the foundation of civilization in that no industry is untouched by it. But I pursued it, I think, to be impressive, and to be able to persuade people to my cause, which is funny now that I work in defense, the sort of bad guys and cynics that make the world go round. And it is fun sometimes. But there is no passion in trying to impress people.

In Marfa I realized that I had neglected the things I really wanted to do– writing, art, and science. Science is an old interest I gave up because I thought I wouldn’t be good at it. Sometimes I think I’m not good at writing either, or art, though those come easier. Marfa taught me that it is more about the experience, and now, I want to experience things. My job has become tasteless, and I am still not sure how to reconcile my artistic reawakening and my desire for structure and good pay.

I learned that there is a rhythm to the universe– a sort of grounding beauty and music to the way the galaxies are flung into the void further and further away from ours in perpetuity, the way the stars collapse in on themselves and die with color and drama like a romantic comedy, and the way the birds sing, and the rivers run. I have always wanted to learn to read it, and beat along with it. I was always told I was bad at math, and maybe I was. Maybe I just didn’t have an interest at the time. But science draws me in. I had no idea that evolution and the origins of the universe were so well-studied. I had no idea the weight that E=mc2 has or knew of the mysticism of dark matter and energy. I wish I would have known sooner. The world has new meaning when you realize that it is all made up of dancing particles pulling themselves together. It is more vast on its minute level than the vastness of the skies of West Texas. I love the skies, and I love the particles. And here I am, a chunk of atoms, trying to use words to describe it– maybe that is my lot in life.

I think art and science go hand in hand. It takes your breath away, the longer you look at it.

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