Get a Handle on Life

I was flat on my back in the wee hours of a summer night staring up at an ocean of sky. I was far, FAR away from the light polluting effects of modern civilization and waiting for the promised spectacular light show of the Perseid meteor shower. The Milky Way, often so hard to see, was spread in front of me like a spill of cream across the blackened sky. The familiar stars, linked by human-devised constellations, standing proud in their assigned places. I had sand under my backside, my handsome husband lounging nearby, and a slight breezing tugging at the blanket that covered my toes; half-awake, brain on autopilot.

And then I picked up a pair of binoculars. And was dazzled.

My field of vision was now an explosion of light. No longer just pricks of brightness in the curtain of the inky night, those familiar stars were just the front line of an infinite celestial display. Everywhere I turned my binocular-enhanced gaze, layers upon layers of stars became visible.  I sucked in my breath so loudly that I woke the sleeping giant next to me who was supposed to be watching for meteors but had dozed off in the warm, sea-scented night. (Don’t worry too much about him – he went right back to sleep.)

Fighting to meet the “Are you Smarter than a 5^th Grader” standard, I began to really THINK about what it meant to be a “star.” Our star, our Sun, fondly shines over its 9 planets (I still grant Pluto full planet status even though it has been downgraded to a mere dwarf planet), who dutifully circle in their allotted orbits. Luckily, we all ended up on the planet that enjoys the sweet spot in the sun dance – not so close that your everyday challenges would include coping with liquid magma on your walk to work and not so far that your brain WOULD actually freeze. Solid. Immediately. Although habitable and lovely, our Earth is but a teeny part of our solar system.

Here’s the mind blowing part. Each of those stars – impossible to count, beyond the comprehension of my puny brain – represented the center of another potential solar system. With planets, dwarf-planets, moons, asteroids, comets. The Sun, although the center of OUR universe, is not the center of THE universe. We don’t even know where that is. It’s not even the center of our galaxy. Layers upon layers of stars exist just here in our “own” Milky Way. Who knows how many more galaxies lie outside the range of even the most powerful telescopes, far beyond our puny abilities to find them.

I put down the binoculars. (I know when I’ve had enough.)

I was back on the same beach, with the same sand under my backside. I was the same person living the same life. But, with an entirely new sense of the infinitesimally small role I played in the grand scheme of things.  Suddenly, the worries and woes of everyday existence, which so easily overwhelm us into thinking they are of critical importance, were put into perspective. Worries like:

I don’t do a very good job of keeping my house neat. YOU ARE HERE. 

What if I make a mistake and someone figures out I’m not perfect? YOU ARE HERE.

I want things MY way. I have to be right. YOU ARE HERE

The cat scratched the heck out of legs of my grandmother’s heirloom, antique table. YOU ARE HERE (So, is the cat.)

Naturally, we worry about our families. Our kids, our aging parents, our spouses, our loved ones. We want to protect them from harm and surround them with love. Ok. Do that as best you can. But, we need to STOP worrying about things that really don’t matter. Let’s really think about our place in the universe and apply the “you are here” mantra whenever we find ourselves wasting our precious time and effort on things that don’t even register as a blip in the cosmos and invest it in those that do. Family. Friends. The gift that is life.

We are ALL here. Let’s enjoy the ride together.