I don’t want to go. I don’t want to spread Leigh’s ashes. It is final. In practical terms, there is nothing more final than what has already happened to her. There is nothing more final than what has happened to her and the life we shared. She is, however, in my closet. What remains of her physical matter is in a black plastic box in my closet.
I’ve been reading a lot in the last two and a half years about particle physics and cosmology. These subjects, like a good scotch, take the edge off of what happened.
At the cosmic level, none of us matter. Nothing we do, say, feel or think matters to the universe. This is a comforting thought to me. We are the tiniest bits of irrelevance that could possibly exist. We are here for a millionth of a billionth of a zillionth of a second on the cosmic timeline. So what if I lasted a zillionth of a smillionth of a second longer than Leigh? We were essentially around for the same inconsequential amount of non-time. The universe breathed in, we came, and then it breathed out and we left. Sadly, she sooner than I but both of us where exhaled without much cosmic thought or purpose.
And even better, at the atomic level, nothing ever changes and nothing ever goes away. Matter is conserved. Matter is difficult to destroy. Humans have little sway over the breaking of strong atomic bonds. In my mind, I can imagine the cooperative arrangement of atoms that was Leigh. I can see all those electrons zipping around all those protons and neutrons. I know that the box in my closet is full of those very exact same atoms. Some of them are missing. Some of them have already been set loose by the process of death on their journey through the cosmos. We humans think of ourselves as adventuresome but our mortal adventures are poor little impotent treks compared to the riotous time our atoms will have before their energy has been depleted. Albert Einstein, in the greatest thought a man ever thunk, explained this to us. Unfortunately for us, he was interviewed by a sports journalist (who, no shit, specialized in Golf journalism) who put out the misconception that we where all too stupid to understand what Albert had to say. This notion stuck so we all just didn't bother. Albert said E=mc2. He said Energy is mass and mass is Energy and mass has so much Energy that you are going to crap in your drawers once your realize how much. He said, in fact, that the amount of Energy contained in matter is like so big you should think of a really big big number like the speed of light or something (that is what the c is for) and then, to make it even bigger, you should go ahead and multiply it by itself. Multiply that super-giganto number by the amount of mass you have and that is how much Energy is contained in it. Each of us are walking around with the power of 15 nuclear bombs worth of energy in the mass of our bodies. That is what he said. He wasn't saying that Energy is exactly equal to mc2. He was sort of just making a point.
My point is that Leigh is all powerful and for all practical purposes she is eternal. The largest stockpile of Leigh's atoms is buzzing around at incomprehensible speeds in a black plastic box in my closet demanding freedom so they can go do their eternal thing. At the cosmic level, we all matter.
I do wish that Leigh’s atoms would have cooperated a zillionth of a second longer. It feels wrong to me that they did not. We’ve all heard, to the point of annoyance, that life is not fair. Yet, I think we all go looking for evidence that it is and reject evidence that it is not. We feel better when we imagine that karmic justice has been served, when hard work pays off and when good things happen to good people. We tend to ignore, forget or not compute when the kid from the local high school gets struck dead by a drunk driver. I think, if you’ve been paying attention, you may have noticed how random it all is. It’s awesomely random. And the universe is full of Irony. How Ironic is it that our atoms are virtually indestructible while we ourselves are so ephemeral? How about when we think that ‘fair’ is when everything goes our way when in fact ‘fair’ would mean that it only went our way about half the time? And isn’t it Ironic that so many people see god’s intentions clearly when he causes a poor family’s lotto ticket to have a wining number but the same people can only quietly mumble about the mysteriousness of god’s plan when he gives a two year old pancreatic cancer? So I guess life might be fair after all. And if I believed in god, I would say to him that you are so funny I forgot to laugh. And he would probably say to me that I should lighten up. And I would then tell him what huge dick he is being.
I need to let Leigh’s atoms re-sort themselves into the universe. But first, I’m going to procrastinate. I have a motorcycle, which I sort of know how to ride, and I’m going to strap the black plastic box to the back and ride the long way to Vermejo New Mexico.
1 comment:
slow,look,lean, and roll.... good boy... love you..
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