A friend—in a land far, far away—once told me that it’s impossible to feel lonely if one can see familiar things. He went on to describe familiar things: the sun, the moon, the planet Venus gleaming in the twilight. His concept of familiarity was both brilliantly vague, and amazingly precise. This friend—in a land far, far away—echoed a sentiment I’ve always held: the things that distinguish humans from one another are little more than human inventions. They are tools intended for a questionable use. There are distinctions, to be sure, but these are minor things that pale in comparison to the commonalities. When I arrived in Prague—a city in a land far, far away—I felt a complicated muddle of mundane emotions. Fear was not one of them. I’d left friends in Dallas, Texas…boarded a plane bound for Atlanta, Georgia. I waited for my connection flight, caught it, and flew to Paris to await still another connecting flight. I’d been to Paris before. I liked it, but not for the oft-cited reasons. I like Paris for the same reason that I like Prague, or Seattle (I haven’t been there, yet) or Moscow (I haven’t been there yet, either) and any other city on Earth. I like any place in which I can see the sun, the moon, the planet Venus gleaming in the twilight. I saw sunlight, today, caressing the contours of a rubbish dumpster and its companions. Though the actual photons of light were different than any I’ve ever seen, they spilled from the same source, the most familiar of local stars. I saw that star (we simply call it the sun and often dismiss its subtler significance.) I recognized it as the same sun that I saw one morning in Prague, shortly after an intriguing night of alcohol, shadows, and a river. It was the same sun that I saw on that day (after an intriguing night,) when I pulled out my camera and captured images of intensity falling on the flesh of a good, good friend. Sunlight touches all things in the same way, and when you recognize this, you’re able to imagine friends (both near and distant) looking up (at some point) and seeing what you see. There can be no loneliness in the face of such awareness, and in the face of such awareness, even a rubbish dumpster bears something (however small) in common with a cherished friend. It only takes a photograph to remind us of this, and I made such a photograph simply because I was inspired by that thought, and I liked the familiar dance of light and shadow on random surfaces. Such surfaces aren’t as appealing as the flesh of a friend, but sunlight doesn’t care, and—as I snapped this photo—neither did I. The sun that lit these dumpsters, is the same sun that lit one morning in Prague. As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a good week/end.