The secret life of satellites and mushrooms

Satellite after satellite. They’re spaced evenly as they cross the sky, all in a neat row following each other, as if a necklace of tiny blueish pearls on an invisible string.

“No one up on this pre-dawn Thanksgiving but us, oh star-like ones." These whispered words leave my mouth as breath-clouds, quickly dissipating.

We are each a different point of light in a cold November universe, joined by the cats watching through a window.

Thank you for the gift of still being here to take this all in.

It’s a thought, though I’m not sure who, exactly, I’m thanking, but then I love living in a mystery.

After a week of crazy rain, it’s been so clear and star-studded the last couple of mornings. Bare eyes can always spot a few satellites randomly crossing the sky to and from different directions, faint and slow—and with binoculars, they’re seemingly everywhere, almost chaotic.

Ever-wishing for a shooting star, it’s stray satellites that tend to show up.

The last two days, however, this odd, unexpected, yet well coordinated flight of bright, faster-flowing satellites. Yesterday the trajectory passed just below the Big Dipper from west to east. Now, they glide directly over my head.

Nightbirds, my mind offers. Who doesn’t want to meet the sunrise, warm and luminous? But these are no birds.

Like beads on an abacus, they cross from one side of darkness to another, and I count them. Seventeen yesterday, more than 30 today, before the sky brightens, the stars and this surprise traffic of satellites, fading out of sight.

It’s easy to let the mind go into its murky thoughts. The world feels like a geo-political mess, so the mind, ever protective, tries to coax the body into fear mode, wary and vigilant. China, Russia, North Korea, dark-web actors, spying?

Maybe, maybe not. I prefer curiosity over fear.

Inside, the cats, wrestling, stop to follow me into my writer-cave aka my home office. I ask the all-knowing Oz, now called Google, about the string of satellites in the wee hours of my Pacific sky. Up pops an answer, artificial intelligence, AI, firing up my human intelligence with this:

“A ‘string of satellites’ visible in the early morning sky along the Pacific Coast is most likely a group of Starlink satellites launched by SpaceX, which appear as a line of lights due to their close proximity while still in formation shortly after deployment; this is often called a ‘Starlink train.’”

So I’ve been riding the Starlink train.

Thank you millennia of Homo sapiens minds that led to my ability to have almost any question I ask, answered immediately. Thank you, also, that it’s led to a train chugging far above the redwoods, providing high-speed internet access to remote areas around the world so that people, far less fortunate than I, can also find some answer they are searching for.

We are all searching for answers, yes?

A childhood song went, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love,” which remains an ever-true answer to many questions. I would add, what the world also needs now is curiosity, wild curiosity, it’s the only thing that there’s just too little of (well, maybe not the only thing).

Why curiosity?

If you ask any cat, contrary to whatever you’ve been told, curiosity, rather than killing, is thrilling. So, curiosity is always worth the risk. It’s one underappreciated antidote to fear …

⍨ Of the unknown, the out-there, what’s beyond the margins of the familiar,

⍨ Of a future often without the physical presence of someone you love,

⍨ Of people who look and live differently,

⍨ Of worst-case scenarios and dire forecasts,

⍨ Of boredom, anxiety, emptiness, or overwhelm,

⍨ Of the drive to give up or give in, or let yourself shut down.

This time of year my calender is clustered with consultations, people grieving the loss of a loved one or navigating lingering trauma. The holidays can be a magnifying glass for all that’s terrible as well as beautiful.

At the heart of these conversations are people in pain, looking for answers.

I’ve listened to more stories of loss than I can count from people so very diverse—culturally, geographically, ethnically, politically, socially, and economically. It’s humbling, and what might surprise you, also life-affirming and soul-expanding.

I mostly don’t have the answers for them. Nor does Google or any search engine. Nor does the most clever AI.

The answers are either already within them or still to be found by them. I am at best a midwife, helping them work through their pain and give birth to some new way of being in a world changed by loss.

I’m also a walking library—so many stories I carry within. It matters to listen, to be a witness to someone’s life, and to carry them forward with you, to be a living memory of others.

This isn’t just about me. It’s what you do, too, in your own way.

How do we know we exist, that we matter, if no one really sees us, then remembers us?

When I was traveling in Sierra Leone in 2013, a West African country recovering from a horrific war and deep economic poverty, so many people I met, or shared a meal with, would say as I left their village, “Will you remember me?” At the time, few white people from wealthier countries visited, and rarely did they return. So it was understandable that the people of Salone, as they refer to their country, felt invisible and forgotten.

“Yes,” I’d answer, memorizing their face, the heat of their hand (damp in the humidity) touching mine, the scent of coming rain or pineapple plants sweetening the air, the sounds of strange birds and mix of Salone dialects surrounding us.

Now, I can close my eyes to see Fataba, Osman, Thaimo, Alie, Fanta, Musa, and others, to be with them in this moment while far away in time and distance.

We want to be seen and in some way take root in another’s life story.

Cats, redwoods, jays, grey foxes, deer mice, the spider tatting her web in a corner. They can all acknowledge your being and confirm your belonging to this world.

Still, the best mirror and the richest soil of remembrance is always found in someone of your own species. They may be, and likely are, incredibly different from you, but they are enough like you, in DNA and desires, to see you, then hold you as part of their own history.

When you tell me your story, and I tell you mine, we’re being curious. The question we’re asking ourselves and each other is, “Why?” Why to so many things, troubling and inspiring.

Ultimately, below all the Whys, there is no answer. My mother used to say, “Just because,” which is never satisfying, though accurate.

Living is about asking and looking and being open to possibilities, over and over. Maybe the truest answer comes at the very end. We’ll see.

Earlier this week, a break in the rain, though I was in the midst of worries about my beloved other, who’s increasingly unwell.

I stepped out into the dripping yard, sipped tea beside a birdhouse, and felt deeply sad. Sad for me, and for that birdhouse.

Several years ago, the little house held a nest of Chestnut-backed chickadees. It was such a joy to go sit near the box then, though of course, not too near to panic the parents coming and going with insects for their babies.

I’d listen to the tiny beings’ high-pitched chirping as soon as their parents flew off to look for more goodies.

As they grew, hidden inside, so did the chirping. At times I could hear it as I planted or weeded elsewhere in the yard. The sound was pure wanting. Come back, come back, come back.

You know that feeling? Me, too.

Just before they were to fledge and go out into the world on their own wings, I visited the box and some animal had raided it. I wanted to believe the young chickadees had flown up and away, but the evidence of nest debris and feathers scattered about told me otherwise.

For so long, the box told me only the story of loss.

But on Monday, for some reason, I leaned close, curious, and looked inside the round opening. Surprise! A nest, a clutch, a community—call it what you will—of tiny mushrooms, thriving.

In a second, the birdhouse became a joy again, a place of possibility. Yes, your worldview can shift that quickly.

As I thought about those once-upon-a-time chickadee chicks, I whispered, Thank you.

The real story was not of their loss, but that they appeared at all in that wooden box, the way these delicate mushrooms on thready stems have magically emerged. Lives come in all lengths, though to be alive at all is still miraculous.

It’s easy to miss joy under a mantle of sadness, fear, despair, or any number of emotions or thoughts, but it’s there.

What if you ask for it, for joy, or at least a little lightness of being?

What if you sing inside your little box, “Come back, Come Back, Come back?”

You might not get exactly what you think you want. Mushrooms for instance instead of chickadees, or a Starlink train instead of a meteor shower. Still, those are pretty cool, don’t you think?

What if you realized the world is giving you answers all the time, if you look and listen, open and with a touch of optimism?

What if is a way better question than Why.

Thank you, curiosity.

Free e-Book through Monday, December 2, 2024

For those grieving this holiday season, I’m giving away the Kindle version of my book, Grieving Us: A Field Guide for Living With Loss Without Losing Yourself, completely free.

You don’t have to have an actual Kindle device. You can read this e-book on any device by downloading Amazon’s Kindle app.

This is a limited-time offering that runs through Monday, December 2, 2024 at Midnight Pacific time.

Get your free copy by clicking the button below.

Or go to this link: https://www.amazon.com/Grieving-Us-Living-Without-Yourself-ebook/dp/B08Z477X9D/.

Please also share this link with anyone you believe could use this support.

Curious about the reference to my trip to Sierra Leone?

I also touch on that trip a bit in my book, Grieving Us, and have had readers every so often ask about it. So, I’m sharing the informative Photobook I created after the trip.

Click the book-cover image above, or the button below, to explore the Photobook about that life-changing experience with the beautiful and resilient people of Salone and Liberia.