the ballad of Alice Eddy

Last year, on May 25, I road my bike up Broad River Road at twilight and watched Venus slowly sink into the tree line. I didn’t quite make it all the way to Spartanburg, but I did ride a long way. I’d started early, and so rode a good long way before she disappeared. I was very infatuated with the twilight sky last spring, headlined by Venus. I was very aware that the Venus season was changing, and that she’d soon disappear from the evening sky and be visible only in the east, in the morning just before the sun came up without the beautiful colors of evening.
As I rode west, eyes glued on the planet as the sky darkened, I thought of Allison’s Granny, up in years, down in health, ready for the season to change. Venus, and my thoughts seemed to be a metaphor for Granny that night. I thought of how Venus was brightest when she was only a crescent, because she was closest to us. I thought of how that meant that she was in full glory when farthest from us, and so looked dim from our vantage point. Granny was appearing more faint and distant as the days passed, though she was getting closer to fullness. Soon she’d be gone from us completely, for a season. Too much to contemplate.
Venus, the mythological epitome of the feminine, a jewel in the soft colors of the evening. Surrounded by pink. Soon to disappear for the evening, for the season.
Yesterday, as we re-entered civilization and picked up a cell signal for the first time in days, we received voice mail that Granny had finally become full. Seemingly furthest from us, but in full phase. Ironically for me, she held on as Venus was absent from the evening. She stayed around until within a week of my first evening Venus sighting this year. Thirteen months from her disappearance, I saw her again and contemplated time and eternity and infinity - all fresh confusion for me as I join with my adopted family as we contemplate our own measured lives, mourn our loss, rejoice in her gain, and celebrate a colorful life of beauty.