Now We're Lightyears Away

Before we go to sleep, we are astronauts. The bed is our spaceship. Wrapped in the sheets, a flashlight spinning on the top of our heads, we count to blast off.

Here with you, we didn't need to go very far to be in outerspace.

In the moon, we have a picnic. We brought tomatoes and sandwiches, until we realize we can't take our helmets off.

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A week or two ago, we saw a blue moon. A few months back we saw the blood moon.

Last July 1st, there was a conjunction of Jupiter and Venus. Best we can, we told you about the scientific view of orbits and conjunctions. And then we told how mighty Jupiter, coming from far away, crossed our galaxy to gaze at the beauty of Venus. That evening, we saw the planets waltz in the night sky. That's how our world moves us, we told you, to persist in finding what fascinates us.

On your fifth year on earth our fascination is fueled by planets, the constellations and the cosmos. We often sing songs about the planets in our solar system.

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Sometime last July, the New Horizons mission reached the edge of the solar system, surveying Pluto, the farthest its been 10 years into its journey. We had real time updates and high-resolution pictures as we scroll through smart phones and tablets. How only some years ago, Pluto was a planet, then science contradicts itself saying Pluto is no longer a planet. Earlier this year, re-analysis suggest that previously declared uninhabitable planets are now potentially habitable.

Our knowledge only seems vast.  Our lives are really just minuscule. But the love under our sheets, in our pretend spaceship, I am certain that it is infinite.

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We always go back home.