A couple months ago, I submitted to my university’s student zine, astr, a short essay about space, and it was accepted and printed! I was very excited to see my words in print, and I thought I should share them with you. You can check out the full zine(themed space) here. Enjoy!
As a child growing up in Houston, the space city, I was fascinated with the cosmos, the heavens. Both my parents worked at NASA, and so did many of my friends’ parents. There was a saying that you couldn’t throw a rock without hitting someone in the space field. This fascination with the great beyond was all around me.
I remember this one night during a summer of my childhood, I think the summer before fifth grade. At two a.m., my dad woke me and my siblings, and we carried blankets across the road to the soccer fields to watch a meteor shower. We watched for what felt like hours, these foreign objects burning up as they dared to make it through the atmosphere. I knew that few, if any, would make it through. It’s wild how hard they tried.
When I was younger, I thought the sky was a black blanket with holes poked through. I thought that someone tucked the earth into bed with a dark blue fleece blanket every night, and it was so nice, the thought that someone loved each and every one of us and the earth enough to make sure we were warm and cared for.
Lots of my childhood was spent in nature, where I could see the stars at night. When I visited my grandma on her farm, we would catch lightning bugs; our own slice of the cosmos, hand held galaxies. My mom would poke holes in the lids of jars and we would catch the lightning bugs and use them as nightlights. When holding a lightning bug, they leave a distinct smell, kind of like a cracked open glow stick. It’s bitter, but not sharp with a tinge of grossness.
And then I learned that the elements that make up the very essence of me, the elements that make up my heart and mind and toes and fingers, were formed in stars. I was blown away (I still am). At eight years old, I was presented with proof that everyone and everything has a piece of the divine in them. And then it made sense. The stars, the heavens, are home. We cannot separate the earth and space and ourselves, we all came from the stars and we will all become the stars. I am wrapped up in the blanket of the stars, and it is warm and loving.
