Journal entry, 7/21/91, on the last flight home

7/21/91 on the flight home, I watched Robin Williams in Awakenings. The L dopamine story weaving of  catatonic events. When I opened the airplane windowshade I discovered that it was nightfall. I fell asleep, it was as if… Robert De Niro was fantastic as Leonard Low, the first encephalitis patient to awaken. I remember reading about the cases in the early 70s. And I was sobbing throughout the movie. It’s based upon real cases. Oliver Sacks was the technical consultant. I’m a big fan of anything by Oliver Sacks.

We are banking over San Francisco and I have lost nearly 5 hours on this flight home, leaving at 2 PM only to arrive 4 1/2 hours later, at 10 PM, San Francisco time. I opened my window to see the half moon in the sky, crepuscular, no distinction between sky and earth. Clouds becoming one, the transition of two elements.

On the other side of the plane it is deep sunset. Jupiter is visible on the edge of night. Above the declination line between light and darkness where the stars shine, the Big Dipper points the way north. North by northeast, where the darkness decisions upon us all. The bell curve of the edge of the earth throws its shadow against the universe, having harmonized with a moonshadow during the eclipse. We are all part of the universe. Periodic table is an absolute order, even within the chaos.

I thought I saw part of the Southern Cross, but I think it’s only visible in Hawaii during the winter months. But I have seen the Southern Cross shining over the Pacific as we descended the Nazca planes in Cusco on a similar summer eve.

We have not quite reach the apex of summer, and transitions, and many awakenings are about to unfold. Never have I felt so much at a crossroads, as now. Only this time there is a little anxiety or fear. I‘m cognizant of the events of change unfolding. Usually we go through cataclysmic change with only hindsight as our guide—unaware of the apex, or the agent of change until long after the fact. Recollection reflected in tranquility. Call it 20/20 hindsight vision if you must. I can see clearly now.