space cadet

The Mirrored Night Sky © Xiaohua Zhao (China)

If you know me pretty well, you'll know that I love space. I love its vastness and its mystery. We're not truly friends until I have ranted about space and time to you. So if I haven't yet, there's something to look forward to in our friendship. Honestly though, I'm not super into the idea of studying space. I'm not worried about what materials it is composed of, the exact number of stars in a galaxy, or exactly how long it would take me to fly to another planet. Instead I prefer to ponder its mysteries and what they mean for my ideology. It is so peculiar to love something as a whole but not care for the details of its existence. I guess, in a sense, this means that I love space due to its presence in my own existence rather than its existence alone.

I love the idea that we are each a speck on the spectrum of existence. Astronomers estimate there are around 100 billion galaxies in the universe. Yet, despite the infinite quality of space and time, each of us were brought into this time, in this space for a reason. We are just a speck among the vastness, but how beautiful it is that we even exist at all.

One of my favorite lines of poetry is the following:

Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

from An Old Astronomer to His Pupil by Sarah Williams

To me this verse represents allowing the vastness and darkness of the universe to represent something brighter and more joyful. I think many people are terrified by the idea of space and its mysterious qualities, but I have always been intrigued and drawn to that mystery. I have truly "loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night." And I guess the reason I love the stars so much is because their existence means I exist as well.

But this admiration of our universe and my frustration with the current state of our earth lead me to do some writing of my own. It's a little different than anything I have ever posted and I'm actually quite terrified to be posting it, but I've been thinking a lot about vulnerability so I can't back out now. So here is something I wrote recently that doesn't really count as poetry and doesn't really count as prose. In all honesty I don't even know what it is. Please bear with me.

Gravity

Most people are scared of the dark because it represents the unknown
but I've always found it comforting that there is so much more out there

The night sky glitters with the promise of distant galaxies
and for me 197 million square miles of earth just doesn't seem like enough

I want to travel all across the world
I want to see history and I want to experience culture
I want to escape my own life and live the lives of others
Distant lands beckon me
the spirits of the past, present, and future call out my name
my arms reach out in longing, but my feet are nailed to the floor

I am stuck here in a lousy city in a country so proud of itself that people are ignoring the fact that it's dying
We have lost touch with each other
We care more about our own advancements than the people dying in our wake
I want to incite change
But I just can't figure out how

So I want to travel the world
And when I'm done with the earth
I want to escape her grasp as well

To fly among the stars
To experience the vastness of our universe
To simply escape would mean so much more than a world crumbling underneath my feet

Gravity is the only thing keeping me down.