the inbetween: remembering the big picture

When I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
- The Learn'd Astronomr by Walt Whitman

Somewhere between the harsh fluorescent lights glaring down and the bright projector glare, my vision became hazy. I was lost on the waves of monotonous lectures, swept up in a sea of formulas and postulates. I forgot that all of this would help me discover a more wondrous world. In the rat race of school (and life) it is too easy to become absorbed with these details that make it difficult to remember the big picture.

So I just wanted to share this poem as a reminder to those all of those still in school, especially my three little sisters, and to those like me, continuing their education. Despite all of school's trials and tribulations, the real light is outside, over there, and oh! how beautiful it is.

After the textbooks are closed and your diploma received, may your hunger for knowledge never be satiated, friend.

xo from catie

p.s. More from the inbetween series on starting and the pursuit of passion.

p.p.s. If you're not watching The Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, which is free on Hulu, you're definitely missing out. I watched my first episode this weekend and am hooked!

{ photo from tumblr: the universe unknown }