We are all stars under the same night sky
Chasing after the lightness of youth. Can we ever recapture that feeling again?
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I grew up in New York City where you can only ever see a handful of stars in the sky at any given time. It’s possible to make out the Big Dipper depending on where in the city you are, but when the sky went black, it looked to me as a child like a dark void of nothingness. I knew that space was infinite, but I often felt like I was living in a snow globe because the night sky was so opaque. If I were to stand on the roof of the tallest building in NYC, I could imagine reaching up toward the sky and tapping it like a piece of black glass.
The first time I really saw the stars was in the summer of 1989 when I went camping in Canada, somewhere near Quebec on the St. Lawrence River. I spent an entire month in the woods—not car camping or glamping or backyard camping, but hardcore hike-in-for-miles-with-nothing-but-a-backpack kind of camping. I had only camped once before. For this city-raised teenager, it was a life-changing experience, enduring periods of discomfort without the usual creature comforts and living on only what we could carry in on our backs.
But it was also breathtaking. When it wasn’t raining, I slept outside under a sky that was unlike anything I had ever seen. The stars above appeared as if someone had tossed up a handful of glitter and shimmering sequins. I could even see subtle variations in the colors of the stars and marveled at how some clusters formed vivid, milky expanses. My snow globe had shattered. For the first time, I saw the depths of what was out there beyond the airtight cover of my childhood sky.
A few years later in January of 1992, I get off the plane in Seattle. There is no one to meet me at the airport. I am as far away from home that I could possibly be without crossing an ocean. That choice was made with some deliberate intention. I had never stepped foot in Washington state before and this move of transferring schools, sight unseen, was on a bit of a whim.
There are very specific moments in your life that play out like a cinematic scene in your memory. We all have them. One such moment of mine is riding down the parkway at dusk through the canopy of Douglas Firs, slowly realizing that this very unfamiliar place was now home. Even writing this gives me pangs of intense nostalgia because I can recall that feeling so intensely: a mixture of apprehension, excitement, and surreal exhilaration of the unknown.
I arrive at the college in the middle of winter break and aside from the person who hands over the keys to my dorm on campus, I talk to no one for three days. I remember sitting in my new room for an hour right as I walk in, listening to the silence and feeling the gravity of where I was at that moment in life.
Later that evening I walk outside. It’s dark and I lay down in the middle of the soccer field and marvel at all the green around me, the faint mist in the air, the low buildings nestled unobtrusively amongst the trees. I am completely alone on campus under a starry mass and I feel invisible again, just as I often felt when I was a child. Why? There is not a single person here who knows of my existence. In that moment, in this soccer field lying underneath the stars where not a single soul knew who or where I was, it’s like I did not exist at all.
The very idea of this feels staggering. If I chose to, I could completely start my life over. It is this very thought that allows me to breathe again. At that point in my life, it feels like a gift.
A few days ago, my 20 year old sends me a message that her plane has landed in Seoul where she will be for the next six weeks doing a semester abroad, at the same university my father attended, in fact. I’m grateful that I made the trip to Korea last year after a 40 year gap, so that I have the visual references and context I need when she sends me photos and updates.
Whenever I think about my child being in Korea right now, I feel a slight ache in my heart. I can’t pinpoint exactly why. Something about it feels like my life has come full circle, an open loop that is now closed. Korea is a place from my distant past that I rejected throughout my entire childhood, but is now firmly in my present and hopefully my future. It is a place that is often on my mind.
There’s something very poignant about sending your child out into the world for the first time. I’m not talking about going away to college, but rather the first time they travel without you or rent their first apartment or get their first real job. Our lifetime is comprised of many "firsts," but it doesn’t truly compare to the first-time experiences of youth.
Maybe that’s why I’m feeling a little wistful. Is it even possible to feel as truly anonymous as I did back in that soccer field in 1992, starting a new life in a new place? I am bursting with excitement for my kid, but a little piece of me is grieving for something that I feel is gone. Is this a selfish thought?
I am on the cusp of entering a new chapter in my life, but the lightness of youth is something that I think I am quietly mourning. When the weight of adult responsibilities is so heavy, when I’m looking at a future within reach of caring for our elderly parents, when I face the limits of my own physical health, the world does not feel as wide open or care-free. It’s not a bad or good thing, it just is. It’s the acceptance of aging.
Today was the first morning I woke up without feeling the crushing stress that has gripped me all June. A lot of changes have happened in one month. I hope July resettles things and brings with it some balance. I know life still has the potential of unlimited possibilities; I just need to find a way to get back there.
This week’s drawing
Meh. My heart isn’t really into drawing or anything creative right now.
Related reading
A blueberry summer: stories from an art school dropout Ep2
Links and things
Do plants have minds? In the 1840s, the iconoclastic scientist Gustav Fechner made an inspired case for taking seriously the interior lives of plants (Aeon)
On Boredom “Boredom expresses the state of tension between a fear, desire or impulse that has been repressed and the leftover yearning that remains free-floating in consciousness, looking to attach to something.” (Granta)
Scientists Discover Marine Fungus That Can Eat Plastic (SciTechDaily)
Fungus is amazing.HOW TO PARTY (Without Regrets) (NYTimes)
The internets are up in arms about this quote included in a NYTimes feature. Being an Asian household, we are a strictly no-shoes house, but I’ve always found it so entertaining to see the shoes vs. no shoes so hotly debated.
Your letter today made me breathe a little deeper. It’s nice not to feel alone in aging, Jenna. Thank you for the reminder that starting over—which we seem to do every day these days—can be as wondrous as seeing stars for the first time.
My parents never had much money and circumstances were such that I never traveled when I was younger. I envied friends who were able to go off to college in other cities, but I made do. I've traveled as an adult and while it's still usually a good experience, I do wonder how things may have been different had I been able to do so more in my 20s.
However, getting to witness a star-filled night somewhere without much light pollution is always amazing. The strangeness of seeing a different night sky than I'm used to in the southern hemisphere or in a place across the ocean is pretty astounding.