Two Suns

One day in the life of first grade: creating a class mural with long sheets of butcher paper and crayons. What my classmates had drawn when I got there: snowmen. Lots of snowmen.

And in the sky: the sun. Or, suns. At least two. Maybe more.

I didn't like it. We never got much snow in Weatherford, but I was sure that if it did snow, there wouldn't be two suns in the sky. Not even one. Otherwise those snowmen (are they going anywhere?) would melt.



This general snowlessness made my hometown seem unreal and undesirable to me. Snow in storybooks. Snow in Charlie Brown's Christmas. Snow was the right thing. Weatherford didn't have snow.

Years later, CWS loaned me Pink Floyd, The Final Cut. He was always loaning me records that he thought would expand my musical horizons (Rolling Stones, Beggar's Banquet, was another one: it did, after all, have that song that mentioned Anastasia, my historical icon. I liked her name. And I liked Russia, because it was the evil empire and so seemed exotic.)

Two suns in the sunset
Hmmmmmmmmmm
Could be the human race is run.

Even Luke Skywalker longed to get away from the twin suns of his ancestral home.




I lived in an imaginary land, long ago, far, far away. Or I lived in an anxious future, with two suns signalling the end of everything.

Restlessness. No place seemed right.

But what could I do? The snowmen were there, in indelible color. And the suns.