What’s that thing called when you feel a magnetic pull to a place that isn’t home, but feels like maybe it was home a dozen lifetimes ago?
“All my relations.” “…refers to an individual’s multidimensional bond with the entire world, including people– from close relatives to strangers, from the living ancestors who lived long before– and also the rocks, the plants, the earth, the sky, and all creatures. Ancient cultures have long understood that we exist in relationship to all, are affected by all and affect all. ( Gabor Maté, The Myth of Normal, 52.)
You and this place- Death Valley, it feels like you were secret lovers once. You feel a connection- an undeniable chemistry with the expansive blue sky, the distant mountains, the sand, stone, and arid desolation.
You two were meant to be.
It’s not strange, nor foreign, not even “just another place.” There is a comforting familiarity, an ease, a flow between you that you’ve never felt or had with any oneplace before. You instantly feel both regret for arriving so late in life, and yet so cherished in this moment.
Can the desert cherish you? Can the fine sand whisper a poem just for you in your ear?
You just click.
with the sunshine, with the centuries old formations-
age is just a number. You’ve always been drawn to the aged, the older, the wiser, anyway.
Love isn’t it. Neither is infatuation. And yet, the painted sunset feels nothing less than the grandest of gestures.
It is comfort, contentment, familiarity that stretches beyond the millennia-year-old stars.
It is the peace of being known, seen, understood and accepted for who you are, the beauty of you and your origins.
What’s that thing called- when you know you were made from the same dust?
when you realize what you’ve been calling “home,” has only been a shadow of the truth?
What’s that thing called when you yearn for someone a place that you realize is truly home?
I never thought much of it, until I stood beside its’ hulking mass of achievement and dreams.
I looked at the Endeavor and felt things. Things like pride, but also this other thing, this “wow-they-actually-did-it” kind of feeling. When we are presented with these awe-inspiring achievements and accomplishments, we just kind of marvel at these giants of knowledge and confidence who produced them. Like the accomplishments, these people seem to be super-human, or special, they seem like… giants. ..
but, are they?
Everything has a past and a story of how it came about. Those big ideas started out small, as scribbles on paper, notes on napkins, long, laborious hours of unglorified research; there is always the humble or boring or tedious, untold story that props up that glamorous achievement.
This isn’t all so obvious to us though. When we see a beautiful flower, we think “Wow, what a beautiful flower”. Rarely, if ever, do we think “Awesome soil”, or stop to consider the hours of labor and care, and the patience it took to await such results. We just marvel at the result, so magnificent, and convince ourselves that we could never achieve anything like it…
For every “big idea” I’ve ever had, I’ve been able to think of several good reasons why it’s not a good idea. I have Endeavor-sized-dreams and goals, but feel so small and unimportant, that I give up before I even try.
But as I stared at the Endeavor, I wondered, what if those people, the people that dreamed of Endeavor, what if they had given up? What if they had convinced themselves it was impossible? Convinced themselves not to try, not to dream, or that they were too small and unimportant?
And then I thought, well heck, why not me? Why not my ideas? Why not dream, try, and be unafraid to fail, or look stupid? I am inspired by so many; why not share inspiration? Encourage dreams? Why does dreaming about the future stop in elementary school? When, who and how was it decided that “I can’t” ?
There will always be a reason to put it off until tomorrow. But there won’t always be tomorrow. There will always be naysayers. There will never be a “good time” to start, and there will always be someone else who is better, smarter or faster.
So. what.
Dream anyway.
I felt so many things when I saw the Endeavor because it represents so much more than just a scientific achievement, it is a reminder of dreams, small things, years of toil and persistence; all these wonderful and difficult things wrapped up into one goal, that if we allow and push ourselves, will bring us to places we never even dreamed possible. I want to be there, to see the places and things that I’ve never dreamed possible.
Not The Time and Place 