Lesson #22: Specks of Dust
I realize that it's going to be hard to discipline myself to write every day while I am in this tropical paradise known as St Martin. Imagine Paris, only tiny and secluded with palm trees. Yeah, like that. We are situated in a sprawling, tastefully decorated yet ridiculously lavish villa in Terres Basses. After a long day of travel and finding an off the beaten path gem for dinner (chef turned out to be a Quebec native! You can take the girl out of Montreal...), we retired to the patio and pool overlooking the sea, under a canopy of stars.
On a clearer night I might have picked out more than Orion and the Andromeda galaxy and quite possibly Mars. I love star gazing, especially in the absence of urban glow, but it has always more than a little freaked me out. Like to the point of near losing grip on reality. Or maybe hyperreality.
On a recent return flight from Honolulu I was desperately trying to achieve asleep and found myself watching a horror flick on the airplane movie channel. OK, it was actually a documentary on galaxies, but it was probably the scariest thing I have ever seen. Various geektastic physicists, each with worse hair and pant choices than the last, gleefully recounting how galaxies form and die; how behemoth they are in terms of size, and how our very own Milky Way is set on a collision course with another galaxy in a few million years and will either shatter apart into billions of smithereens, or be absorbed into this other galaxy, creating a new fusion hybrid. Wow. Cool. Exciting stuff. Except that it makes me question all of existence. If all of the calculations are correct and earth is destined for destruction; if we are truly just one measly planet in a sea of bottomless black holes, then how on earth does anything matter? Who cares about picking the right sweater?Or restaurant? Or college? Or husband? If we are all just specks of dust on specks of dust, then what does it all mean? I'm afraid I don't have the answer to that one, boys and girls. Except to say that it probably all doesn't matter. So live in the moment. Enjoy this fleeting fire. And as E.M. Forster so aptly put it: 'Only connect.' Because according to the nerds with the calculators, it is only a matter of time before we are all torn apart.