Happy Birthday, Stacy

I stood on the balcony and leaned my head back as far as I could. It had been a volatile, rainy day, and a deck of clouds moved rapidly across the nearly midnight sky. The urgent sound of late-August crickets strung its way through the thick, humid air.

When I looked straight up, the quick traversing of the clouds made me keenly aware that the planet beneath me was moving. Thick white puffs turned quickly into shreds of vapor along the inky universe beyond, which became apparent in the occasional glimmer of a faraway light – perhaps a star, perhaps an airplane.

The longer I stared upward, the less I felt rooted to my balcony. I fancied myself on the deck of a ship riding through an ocean of foamy stars.

When I turned my gaze earthward to rest my neck, the street seemed cartoonishly small. The cardboard apartment house across the way looked lit from within as if by AA-size batteries. Pedestrians on the sidewalk were clay-mation figures from an early episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.

I returned my gaze starward and was swept away by the rotating heavens above me. Their vastness made me feel small, and my smallness felt comforting, safe, free.

If I am this small in the face of such an enormous universe that spins through the galaxy whether I see and feel it or not, my sins and missteps and accomplishments can’t mean so much.

The feeling was not dissimilar to how I felt on the mountaintop in rural southwest France on that last European trip with Dave. The road down the mountain was closed for resurfacing, and we would have to hike from the refuge to my professor’s house in the morning – a hike we both looked forward to – so we were two of maybe four or five people total on the side of that mountain that night.

I felt I could reach my tiny hand out and touch the Milky Way.

That last big trip together was tough for me. I think I knew something was wrong, but I hadn’t yet realized I could make drastic changes to address it. The trip was mentally and physically challenging, with a daunting itinerary and a lot of reliance on my fading translation skills. I often felt inadequate and incompetent. Dave saved our bacon on the ridiculously frenetic Périphérique that rings Paris with five lanes of automotive chaos when I froze in panic. I did okay navigating the small towns and reading menus, but for the big stuff, I choked.

This night – midnight at the start of Stacy’s miraculous birthday that was never supposed to happen – this night felt as remote as an alpine peak or a North Atlantic steamer ship. I felt small in the face of the universe once again, and that feeling gave me peace.

I cherish any reminder of the fact that this universe, this existence, this perception of time and place exists outside of me and harbors no emotional attachment to me. My presence on this rotating orb is accidental and expendable, though miraculous in its improbability.

Happy 52nd rotation around the sun, Stacy Meadows. This day is as improbable as any, as miraculous as the spark of life itself. You have altered my spinning orbit in ways I never could have imagined. And I am happy our paths converged long enough to make my insignificance seem meaningful for a little while. Now when I look at the sky, I know you see it too. And I feel a little more connected to this shimmering thread of life because you have shown me how precious that delicate thread is. Rock on, you crazy diamond!