I met up with a friend the other night, he was taking photos of cicadas and needed tin foil to reflect light and I had no good reason to say no, other than I was going to sleep. But the chance to watch a dozen or so cicadas in their various stages of emergence: probably I will never do that again and I’m glad I said yes. (I don’t like bugs, they’re too volatile and I don’t like their unpredictable flight paths. The larger bugs feel more like small animals and I feel guilty attempting to kill them because my instinct is to avoid harm.)
I stood under a tree with him for a half hour watching cicadas, and catching up. The bugs are interesting, sure. I jumped a couple times, at them falling from the tree or at other bugs nearby. I don’t do overnights anymore but often work into the night. I didn’t get home til around 1130 or so. Which, for me, is really late.
Driving there, and home, I felt a powerful nostalgia, like I missed and was yearning for a version of home that never really existed, just from being out and moving around in quiet at this hour.
I've failed to communicate the singular experience of overnight unguided travel in the city. I’ve tried, and still I haven’t been able to convey the weight. Especially nights like last: well-lit by moonlight, warm, gentle, the air soft on skin and the breeze comforting ... like the product of magic if you could conjure the feeling of vitality into the atmosphere. But other things too. Have never been able to articulate weight or consequence - violence aside - of general witness during these hours instead of night being something sheltered from.
I worry I'll spend more years on, why does it feel this way. Why magnetic, why so alluring. To be awake at sunset, to move around, to feel energy come and go, sometimes the only slow enough to consider: what is everyone doing at this hour. Maybe that's it. Time passes but can feel like it doesn't. That you can go hours without having the moon or sun to orient yourself.
Or maybe it’s the sense of possibility. Optimism isn’t the right word – not pessimism either - but to start the night knowing you’ll be there for all of it is to understand the unquantifiable realm of possible, so much violence and romance and hate and serendipity and fate too, if you believe in that, chance endings abound.
And now storms to the south, lightning distant, creeping thunder, an occasional flash or stab of electricity, or series of, the silhouettes, and swaying tree branches between my windows and the street lamps.
I’m not qualified to judge the world of history podcasts; I’ll only say that Dan Carlin’s podcasts are ones I enjoy and I’m thrilled at the dozens of hours available for all kinds of topics. I don’t “need” to learn anything, I’m just curious about things I wouldn’t have known to be curious about and I like learning.
The best part has been developing a greater appreciation for the long view of things, and for the discipline of asking “why” instead of casting judgment, which is always the easier approach. This is just my opinion. I’m fortunate for developing this through my work but academic history really, really forces the long view and it’s been a welcome reminder.
Here’s a couple things that resonated from recent treadmill listening, the first few episodes:
“As one historian said, twenty years is not peace, it's an intermission. I had an Air Force Colonel I grew up next door to, he always said it was the equivalent of reloading.” From EP 1 Imperial Germany vs Nazi Germany
“You ultimately discover that even written laws, even following written laws is merely a custom, it's merely a norm, there's no, there's nothing about a piece of paper with laws written on it that compels me to do anything to follow that law. I'm just simply, I'm giving it power with my own ‘because that's how we do things.’ But if somebody, say has a you know an army or a gun or a baseball bat you know, that actually is the ultimate definer of power, it's just brute force. So once you start giving up on sort of what you would call ohh minor unspoken rules, you eventually will get to the point where everybody has to admit that only brute force is really what’s at play.” Mike Duncan, From EP2 Rome through Duncan’s Eyes
“I've never forgotten the sense of contagious panic that took over instantly. I always wondered how I’d behave but I always assumed I’d have some time to think about it. Instead it just takes over. Remember, the Greek God of Panic is the ruler of battlefields and doesn't take a whole lot to spark a collapse.” EP8 Caesar at Hastings
Reading
The Chronicles of Narnia (Book Three: The Horse and His Boy)
Three Tales of My Father’s Dragon
Listening
Your writing is just so beautiful!