I’ve been reading poems by Sappho (It was our pick for April in the Tender Philosophia -book club, hosted by Didi Aphra and me). A particular line “Moon and the Pleiades go down” prompted me to pause, gather my overflowing emotions, and formulate some thoughts.
This is something I repeatedly find myself adoring about old poetry. How time and time again the artist finds a metaphor for their inner life by describing something happening in the sky. Whether it is the sun’s burning corona, the moon’s melancholy or a meteor scarring the sky, opening the astronomic tissue to let ancient gods to see us.
It is something inherent. With ease, we lift our gaze to the sky, feel, and write about it.
I find myself again and again writing about space. I have taken all emotions I’ve ever had and placed them to the night sky. And this began early on. As a kid I used to tell everybody how someday I will find a person who sees the same face on the moon, as I do. And that person will belong to me. Whenever I met new people, I’d ask them if they saw it. No one ever did. But it was clear to me, that there exists this person; I don’t know the body they’re inhabiting, but one day I’ll meet their soul, and I’ll know.
Does it sound esoteric? Indeed, it is. I don’t know where this story originated. As a lonely and often misunderstood child, perhaps there was something tender in the idea that someone would come and provide explanations for everything. There would be another alien like me.
Childhood has long gone, but my fascination towards the space remains. I gaze the moon with my telescope, the Pleiades through my binoculars, and try to always pinpoint the galaxy of Andromeda. And to think about Sappho looking at these same wonders, feels wild to me. There is something magnetic in this screen of wonders that has forever guided us and helped us weave stories. Drawing lines between the stars helps our imagination to come up with destinies that reside within our minds.
I have fallen asleep under the night sky, seen enigmatic dreams where I shapeshift. I stare at a meteor shower, looking at it through gauze of sleep. I am awake. I am a star. I am a blue rose on a hotel bed. The fan orbits my breath, and from behind the wall distant voices of human life echo. They come close to sharing the vision. I stare at my hands and all palmistry has ever told me is “you are here, and you are real.” The stars. The sleep.
The older I get, the more certain I am that all of us feel alone in some way. No one can ever completely understand your view of life, the intensity of your situation, of how much you desire love. Walking through a crowded place can be exhausting. All those human beings, experiencing life in its full capacity. This is called sonder. How can all of us feel so much, yet when we zoom out of the milky way, there’s no sign of us? And where are the other solar systems with life? Is there life in the space? Well, there’s us, and we are pretty alien too.
We are all so unique, and that makes us all similar. Or maybe we are all similar, and a god is speaking through us when we see each other and see love? Whatever the life is for, the most wonderful thing we can do is to experience it. And be glad about the small yet significant things. So, I wanted to list my own alien wonders, and I hope you’ll make a list of your own too.
My Alien Wonders:
1. When the sun hits the house, and casts a golden hue. Freshly watered plants lean into the light, and you feel earth embracing its place in the universe.
2. When your dog places his head on your shoulder. His whole warm body feels melting into a shared moment of affection.
3. When hot summer morning is still a flickering promise, and a cool breeze blows through the balcony. You sip hot coffee, write a poem, look at the swans nesting in the bay.
4. When words pour out. When love pours in.
5. When for a moment there’s a sweet ache of solitude, and that’s when a shooting star darts across the sky. The meteor’s red tail burns like a memory from a sweeter time.
6. When you look at a person, and they look at you, and neither of you can turn your gaze away.
7. When a sunflower field trembles in pink dawn, and flowers face each other, looking for something familiar.
8. When the day has been too long, and the heavy pressure of sleep guides you to bed. Cool fabric of clean sheets rustles like a poem as you fall into your own mind.
9. When you think of a word, and your telepathic counterpart texts you that they can hear your thoughts and gives you the word back.
10. When the sonder hits. Life is a wonder for each and every one of us.
<3 Jonna