PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Last night, I saw on broadcast television the early images transmitted by the James Webb Space Telescope.

This convicted me of a recent failure---my attempt to change my screen name and identity from Starward to J9th.  The difference between them, and what makes one eminently right and the other selfishly wrong, is that I received the former, both in its original form, Starwatcher, and the form it evolved to as Starward.  I took the name J9th; it was never received.

The process of Starwatcher to Starward began on a Friday night in July, 1974 (I was not then prudent enough to notate the exact date):  a voice woke me from sleep, and told me to step outside and look at the stars.  This was sometime after midnight, according to my parents---who found me standing in our driveway looking at the stars.  The noise I had made existing the house had awakened them.  The ordered me to "Get back in the house and back to bed!" and I did not feel inclined to confide in them what had led me out there.  Then, two years later, on July 10, 1976, my friend Cerulean asked me a question that led me to receive the appellation, Starwatcher, as my c.b. handle---and this became a tremendously liberating experience.  I was far more comfortable as Starwatcher than as the name I often heard from others' mouths, "Fairy Jerry."  Starwatcher was never, ever, called a fairy.  Then, reading through the collected poems of Thomas Jones Jr., one of the early twentieth century's foremost Christian Poets (and a high church Anglican), I read the word starward in his sonnet on Saint Benedict.  To me, that felt like Jones . . . who reposed in 1930, just a few weeks short of his fiftieth birthday . . . had given me the word to use.

I am also quietly amused that the James Webb was passively involed in this process for me, as my first foray into science fiction (an unfinished novel that I worked on from December, 1973 through September, 1974) was inspired by a magazine article depicting and descirbing the satellite Pioneer 10 or 11 (again, I was not prudent enough to retain the article into adulthood, although the copy I had clipped from the magazine remained with me until I matriculated in September 1976).  The kind of event-rhyme, so to speak, of these two incidents is not lost upon me, dense and unwise as I, even in my old age, have been.

If, however, you find this amusing, and worth ridiculing, I am happy to provide even you with a little amusement.  Identity has always been a struggle for me---being an adopted child, socially awkward, and failing (according to society's imposed prejudices) to conform to expectations of behavior, and to fail to achieve according to those expectations.  I suspect this identity confusion will continue to pester me while I am in this flesh.  

Thank you for sharing this brief reading moment with me.

Starward

fka J9th

fka Fairy Jerry