I read that on Pluto, when the sun is at its peak, there is enough light to comfortably read a book. The Sun beaming like a nightlight from 3.6 billion miles away. (Billion!)
I also learned that we can experience this level of light each day on Earth. NASA aptly calls this Pluto Time. Lately, when I am lucky enough to remember, I set an alarm for this time of day. Today, this happens to occur at 5:26 PM. When my alarm goes off I smirk, partly a thankful nod to myself for the reminder, and mostly because I am enchanted by the thought that I could be reading this very book from the surface of a dwarf-planet on the edge of our solar system.
I look out the window and think about how all the light from this moment on is Pluto light. Not only can you read a book, but you can see the trees. You can see everything. I stare out and look at the sky and scan my sight through the woods, and the branches and the leaf litter. Pluto is still this evening. I consider how it feels to take in this light from a place so incomprehensibly far from home. So very far away.
But, there are no trees on Pluto.
I check my watch – it’s 5:58 PM. My dreamworld of Pluto dissipates, popped like a bubble, and I am back in my armchair. I begin to think a different way, about how Pluto must be more like the surface of the moon, and how the sky isn’t blue, and how it’s too cold to even exist there, let alone read a book. It’s a rocky mass, half the width of the United States, surrounded by the blackness of space.
I picture the cover art from The Little Prince. The one where he is standing alone atop his little asteroid. The background is nothing but space, sprinkled with a few stars. I nod and agree with myself that that’s more appropriate. Yes, being on Pluto would be much more like that.
Le petite prince. Drifting. I picture him reading a book in his own Pluto light.
But he’s not reading. He’s gazing out into space.
A dreamer.
That’s me. I’m a dreamer. I’m just a dreamer.
I smile for Pluto Time, when the light is soft, relaxed, and gentle enough to take me away into the delightful loneliness of my day dream.
I’m just a dreamer – I can hear it, it’s a song…
The Tallest Man on Earth – The Dreamer
I pick up my phone, queue up the track and put on my headphones. When the guitar riff kicks in I fix my gaze back through the window and watch the light fading out on Pluto.
The Fox & The Peregrine 