Alignment

Yesterday, Jupiter and Saturn aligned closer than they have in hundreds of years. The alignment was so close that from Earth they appeared to be a double planet. 

One star.

So it seems fitting that I am listening to Bowie's magnum opus of an album, Blackstar. My favorite song on that album has always been Lazarus. Bowie's words were a prescient omen. He sang, "Look up here I'm in heaven."

Bowie died two days after Blackstar's release, and just like my father, Bowie was dead at 69 years of age. 

When my dad died many years ago, I was in shock. But my dad's death made me change my life and after he died, I became a writer and a deputy public defender. I left corporate law and never looked back.

My favorite Bowie album is not Blackstar but Ziggy Stardust and my favorite song is Five Years. That song is so timely now. The lyrics are hard to listen to, that's how much they strike me in the heart. 

"News guy wept and told us,
Earth was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet,
Then I knew he was not lying".

It all seems so surreal right now. As if the Earth is on its last legs. Christmas seems at points meaningless and then at times, everything. Like the two planets aligned, it's as if hope and fear are the same emotion in the universe, to become one entity.

Maybe, I can't tell the difference anymore. Yet, I have to think that up there, where my dad and Bowie are, they know the difference between light and dark. 

So I will remain hopeful and thinking of my dad and of Bowie and while singing a prayer, I will continue to reach for the light.