1: pale blue dot
i was born a few hours before the pale blue dot command sequence was sent up to voyager 1. my first appearance in a family photo was as an infinitesimally small dot in the vast portrait of our solar system. on the surface, this was not much more than a particularly personal bit of trivia. but deeper down something about the fact felt particularly resonant. recently, it occurred to me why.
it's a sense of deeper connection with the probe. empathy for its position, its distance from our world. you see, i've always felt that sense of distance too. distance baked into the way i viewed my own body, how i related to others. distance is protective; to hurt someone you must first be able to reach them. even before i had an inkling i was trans, my way to feel safe was distance. i too dwelled in a distant vantage point, longing for a real connection to that pale blue dot suspended in a sunbeam. my location: an uncertain place and future in a sprawling, empty cosmos.
each little addition to the space between ourselves is a further loosening of gravitational bonds. with each little kick, the universe carries you a little further, faster. each miscommunication and failure to relate a gravitational slingshot. it takes time, but 30 years was more than enough to build up the speed carrying me away into the Great Eternal. whatever bonds remained couldn't change that momentum. the probe and i, sailing into the void. our abilities to communicate fading to whispers are modulated by the warm hum of electronics in some forgotten building. when i was calling out, could you hear my whisper carrying over the airwaves?
2: first light
separation is woven into the very fabric of spacetime. once we slip loose of the gravitational bonds between us, space springs forth from every point. it is little more than a quantum trickle when we look closely, to see the accumulation requires taking the wide view of a billion light years. distant galaxies redshift towards relativistic oblivion when space accumulates faster than light can traverse.
after conception, we lived in the forced proximity of youth. our separation grew with the expansion of our universes, but even had we noticed it was too late to intervene. we drifted with age, condensing towards our respective super groups.
when we left each other we became frozen on each other's cosmic background. we remember each other as a facimile of what we once were. for some of you the memory is pristine, if dimmed. for others, it is filtered through the gravity of those who came after - memories brought to focus, split, warped, distorted, combined. eventually separation and time will rip us from one another's universes entirely, but the big rip comes for some sooner than others.
since we left one another we have grown, changed, morphed unrecognizably. if our messages could mend the rift by transcending time and space for a brief moment, what would we say and share?
3: magnificent desolation
i left earth years ago. i have travelled to distant worlds. where i went, i tried to be a human, an ambassador of the species. but i was only pretending. my real body never would have survived the hostile environments i traveled to. i am adapted to earth; the earth is a jewel in a universe of noxious clouds and star-blasted surfaces. i lived life in a tiny capsule surrounded by magnificent desolation.
when i left i thought i would never return. but as i traveled between worlds, searching for the answer to everything and finding nothing, i began to despair. I searched the worlds i thought would provide safe haven, but the safest planets were exclusive and lonely. despair has plenty of room to grow in an expanding universe.
a lifeless gray universe. how could it compare to the azure jewel we call home. i returned there and felt the evening breeze on my face. spring growth and gasoline fumes lingered in the air. lawnmowers and crickets hummed in dissonant harmony. in a moment, i felt the weight of a lengthy journey lift from my shoulders. for a moment i glimpsed the totality of being. it is something to embrace. there is no feeling like coming home to yourself. i looked up a crescent moon hung on blue velvet, glowing gently yellow in our reflected light. when i look at its barren, scarred surface, i remember there is no place like home.