The primordial light

I have resumed my walking journey to work. The freezing rains did not cause too much damage to the sidewalks, especially since the municipal workers did their job on time. It’s cold, it’s still a little windy. Fortunately, since my journey is from north to south, the fresh air from the west is blocked by the strong barricade of the houses.

When the weather is fine, the blue of the winter sky is second to none. It is almost healthy. There will stop the comparison, because smog is not far away, the soot from the automobile droppings of the metropolitan roads is not the promised manna, rather a reminder that hell is never very far away.

The tranquility of my steps is there. The snow is crystal, complains, like the springs of an old mattress, I listen and return to my thoughts, my body gradually warming up with the effort of walking, my lungs swallowing the freshness of the morning.

At the very end of my journey, I have to take Saint-Laurent, which does not have any houses there, on its west side. The plain of Jarry Park gives free rein to the wind. But I’m warmed up now and the cold air doesn’t bother me anymore. And then there is this sun that invites itself into the day.

It is there, of course, every morning when the clouds are willing to leave us alone. Observing its intensity engraved on the snow around the shadows of the trees and at the bottom of the small snow valleys, and also feeling its distant warmth, that morning, I was charmed with a quiet surprise, to admire again and again this star for what it is.

Let’s think about it, I don’t know how many kilometers from here, something like eight minutes at the speed of light, there’s a star, one of those that covers the night. It is certainly not the largest, and probably not the most spectacular. That’s where it all starts, though. It’s big, a star is dangerous, it blinds, it burns, it makes fun of nuclear fungi. We, poor human beasts, really take it for granted, just like the moon, the air we breathe, our very existence.

So that m