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Charge of the Light Brigade
Oct. 30th, 2001 09:41 amLast night, I saw a shooting star. It skipped across the stratosphere, a rock thrown by the tallest of giants. Six orange splashes before it dissolved into flaming white sparks. I don't know when I last saw a star fall, and so spectacularly. I must usually content myself with the fireworks of cigarettes skittering from truck windows.
It's hard to live near a big city, though I profess to prefer it. The noise I can stomach, and the smog -- but not the light pollution. Three out of five Americans have never seen the Milky Way; I wept when I learned Val was one of these. To the nation's majority, the sky is a ceiling instead of a window. Since there's nothing to see, they have no need to raise their eyes; it is better to look straight ahead or down at the ground. How lonely, how closed. The loss of perspective eliminates the universe; no wonder people are self-centered.
I spend much of my time looking up; I'm obsessed with the sky at night. I admit that I know very few constellations; I never took astronomy. I do know the moon, the differences and distortions. Its palette of colors, the shapes of its craters. I come from a family of lunatics; we look at the stars and we dream we are wolves. We catch fireflies 'til midnight.
People sometimes ask me why I stare at the sky; I'm never sure how to answer them. It seems so obvious to me, a powerful magnet just above my head. Maybe I look up because I appreciate beauty. Maybe the sky is a constant wherever I travel. Most likely, I'm waiting to hitch a lift from a passing saucer.
A few years ago, I watched The Last Starfighter for the first time in a decade. Apparently, this was my favorite movie as a kid, along with Explorers, Flight of the Navigator, and oddly enough Watership Down. It was very strange to realize that the reason I played so many computer games was chiefly because I hoped to be asked aboard an X-Wing.
This is not something that will ever happen. If aliens were to exist, and were to exist in a form which we could recognize, and with whom we could communicate, there is very little chance that they'd fly to earth, and even less that they'd happen to pick me up and be friendly. The probability is so close to zero that the distinction becomes insignificant.
For a long time, I wanted very badly to be an astronaut. I never got to go to space camp, but I landed the shuttle on my computer. (I'm rusty now, but I still remember most of the switching sequences.) I wore a NASA jacket and wrote with a space pen. I followed all the launches, knew all the missions, could tell you the jobs of Mission Control. I nearly joined the air force so that I could become a pilot.
The decision against it was very rational. I watched NASA's funding get cut again and again, and I couldn't say that I thought space more important than the fabled "starving children." I looked at the odds of becoming a shuttle pilot. I had too little faith in the US Government to conscience military life; this anarchic streak knocked out the NSA and CIA as well. I didn't support the objectives.
So I packed up my jacket and my space pen. I stopped watching launches. I avoided swimming pools and put away my joystick. I turned from sci-fi to literature, and sometimes cyberpunk.
I pretend that it doesn't hurt me.
It's stupid, really. It's as much a ridiculous fantasy as the hope of a handsome prince, or winning the lottery, only even less likely.
The only way -- the only way -- I can fill that wound for even a second is to think of the Earth itself as a spaceship. And to do that, I have to look out the window and into the starfields.
[For a map of light pollution, look here]
It's hard to live near a big city, though I profess to prefer it. The noise I can stomach, and the smog -- but not the light pollution. Three out of five Americans have never seen the Milky Way; I wept when I learned Val was one of these. To the nation's majority, the sky is a ceiling instead of a window. Since there's nothing to see, they have no need to raise their eyes; it is better to look straight ahead or down at the ground. How lonely, how closed. The loss of perspective eliminates the universe; no wonder people are self-centered.
I spend much of my time looking up; I'm obsessed with the sky at night. I admit that I know very few constellations; I never took astronomy. I do know the moon, the differences and distortions. Its palette of colors, the shapes of its craters. I come from a family of lunatics; we look at the stars and we dream we are wolves. We catch fireflies 'til midnight.
People sometimes ask me why I stare at the sky; I'm never sure how to answer them. It seems so obvious to me, a powerful magnet just above my head. Maybe I look up because I appreciate beauty. Maybe the sky is a constant wherever I travel. Most likely, I'm waiting to hitch a lift from a passing saucer.
A few years ago, I watched The Last Starfighter for the first time in a decade. Apparently, this was my favorite movie as a kid, along with Explorers, Flight of the Navigator, and oddly enough Watership Down. It was very strange to realize that the reason I played so many computer games was chiefly because I hoped to be asked aboard an X-Wing.
This is not something that will ever happen. If aliens were to exist, and were to exist in a form which we could recognize, and with whom we could communicate, there is very little chance that they'd fly to earth, and even less that they'd happen to pick me up and be friendly. The probability is so close to zero that the distinction becomes insignificant.
For a long time, I wanted very badly to be an astronaut. I never got to go to space camp, but I landed the shuttle on my computer. (I'm rusty now, but I still remember most of the switching sequences.) I wore a NASA jacket and wrote with a space pen. I followed all the launches, knew all the missions, could tell you the jobs of Mission Control. I nearly joined the air force so that I could become a pilot.
The decision against it was very rational. I watched NASA's funding get cut again and again, and I couldn't say that I thought space more important than the fabled "starving children." I looked at the odds of becoming a shuttle pilot. I had too little faith in the US Government to conscience military life; this anarchic streak knocked out the NSA and CIA as well. I didn't support the objectives.
So I packed up my jacket and my space pen. I stopped watching launches. I avoided swimming pools and put away my joystick. I turned from sci-fi to literature, and sometimes cyberpunk.
I pretend that it doesn't hurt me.
It's stupid, really. It's as much a ridiculous fantasy as the hope of a handsome prince, or winning the lottery, only even less likely.
The only way -- the only way -- I can fill that wound for even a second is to think of the Earth itself as a spaceship. And to do that, I have to look out the window and into the starfields.
[For a map of light pollution, look here]
