Sometimes a line or sentence stands out not because it strikes a new idea within me but rather, it reasserts something I've felt for ages. I came across one such passage last summer while reading the wonderful book, Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine. He's a writer that I've always felt an affinity with. He's a master at expressing my deepest routed disgust and ugliest emotions. But never has he captured my thoughts so exactly as when he wrote:
The sun was there, I can vouch for that, always the same, as if somebody had opened a big furnace in your face... -Louis-Ferdinand Celine
Anyone who knows me even moderately well knows that I despise sunny days, and warm sunny days even more so. I long for the time when that star will simply die out and leave us all alone to the comfort of our own lighting. I live for cloudy days. Grey is the color of productivity in my world. It's impossible to get anything done on a blazing bright day. No one could possibly express themselves in such a climate.
Given the weather in my part of the world over the last few days, and quite a few more to come so they warn, this quote seems to continually play in my mind as I shake my fist angrily toward the center of our solar system and curse my fate. I have the small comfort of believing Celine would be proud.