The Darkness for the Stars: A Love Story of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Emerson helps me to feel like there are greater things, greater forces out there.
It was a crisp fall day and in northern Florida, that actually meant something. The air was turning from the summer heat the autumn chill, and rusty leaves whirled up in gusts of wind along the side of the road.
Emma sat at the bus stop with me, her eyes intent upon the stapled packet in her hands. Last-minute reading for class. She seemed absorbed in it, eyes roving the page like it contained a glorious painting. We shared my headphones, one earbud for each of us, and bobbed our heads along to the soothing sounds of The Grateful Dead.
The bus chusped to a stop in front of us, lowering slightly to allow a person in a wheelchair to get off. I plucked the headphone out of Emma’s ear and boarded, her right behind me.
As soon as we sat down in a seat near the back, she said, “Sam, you have to read this.”
She proffered the packet. “Circles” by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
“It’s incredible,” she insisted.
And so I did. It took me almost the entirety of the bus ride, reading those long passages that wound and wound back upon themselves. But I got lost in it, same as…
