Floating...

It's so...so... loud. The noise is at a decibel that should be illegal, and yet it's not. And it's in my backseat.

The sound-sensitive eldest child isn't present, so there isn't a scapegoat to lay the blame upon - No one else who HAS to have it silent. No one else to direct attention to, to point at and say "You are bothering HIM!" Just me and my own internal struggles to not lose my shit in a moving vehicle, all because two kids are being, well, KIDS.

It's all on me. My actions. My lack. My inadequacies?
No... I don't think so.

Not much truly separates the Adults from The Children. If we're going to be really honest, we'd all admit that the distance between the caretakers and their charges is equal to that of a few inches won against Earth's gravitational pull.

The sky's beginning to darken now and the volume from behind continues to fluctuate, mirroring my moods.

Their joyous laughter equals my gratitude to the universe.

They immediately flip to indignant shrieks of rage: I immediately flip to screams of fury, hands wound tightly around the steering wheel, causing new grips to indent.

Like the tide, they are laughing again. Snorting with glee and building to a frenzy of hysteria that will inevitably lead to another crash. But I am not as pliable as I once was and cannot release the tension their own conflicts brought to me.

Deep breaths.

I focus on the space before me. Open space. Vast emptiness of harvested Illinois farmland. Miles of unbroken hues of mauve and gold and lilac, all spun together on the evening sky like some abstract water color.

Low on the horizon, Venus appears. Like some master hide-n-seeker, though it was ALWAYS there, but not visible, this shining planet distracts me from the mayhem that is occurring in my backseat.

25 million miles away, uninhabitable, and named for the Goddess of Love....

I am Distracted.

I am no longer in my van but everywhere and no where and all of the world and universe is a part of me. I remember that we are all made of the remnants of former stars. I remember that this life of mine is fluid, not solid. We float and submerge and resurface only to sink back to the bottom and it can feel so.... inconsequential. When the presence of a planet over 25 million miles away is placed before you, the need for the struggle to swim is insignificant; and so I choose to float, instead.

I turn up the radio and float above it all and keep my eyes on Venus.