13 Comments

Loved this, all of it. Loved your rhythm, your voice, steady and with balanced emotion, the feelings still there but now, owned by you, a complement to who you are instead of a liability. That takes courage. Just like the sun coming up every day, we have to have the courage to meet it.

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Sandra, thank you. I think you just stated some of what I was trying to convey even better than I did in this essay!

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then your essay succeeded! <3

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This was a perfect read for a Sunday morning. I like how you flipped back and forth to different times and events, and the sky remained the same sky.

I do this with the moon...I can't believe the moon I look at can be the the exact same moon that someone in a different country is looking at. It makes everything feel so big and us remain so small and insignificant.

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It's a really wild perspective! Thanks Kristi!

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A really powerful piece of writing Erik and I loved your images of the sunset and the barbed wire moon.

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Thanks Gill! It was a bit hard to find the words for this one, but I'm happy with it.

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Nicely done! Here is a quote you might like: “The sky is the consciousness of landscape.”

From Rebecca Solnit

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Woah, that's is powerful! I'm going to think on it for a while. Thanks for sharing it!

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I read this the other day when you published it but haven't been able to gather my thoughts for a comment till now, despite thinking about your writing for a while. Thanks so much for sharing this. I thought, "ooh pretty sunrise photos! Cool Erik-style musings!" And then I was floored when I got to the "the sky was like this when I married my wife and when my father died and when I had to try to save someone who was shot and and and and.." the details were so rich and the heavy weight of emotion was so tangible.

Now you've got me thinking about what the skies were like on my own big moments. I kinda want to try writing that now.

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It's a really profound perspective for me. Not only does the sky connect all of these momentous times in our lives, but connects every other thing that's happening all over the planet at that time. That's wild to think about!

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Yeah! It's mind boggling to think about it.

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Beautifully written Erik - what a lovely sunrise. It made me think of landscapes where the sky is so big it can't be ignored - the big, flat, open desert landscapes of the Outback or being high in space on a mountain top.

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