Wanting, Wondering, Singing

For months now I'd been trying to imagine what it would be like. I’d seen interviews with other astronauts talking about it, and stared for hours at the posters of the Earth in my room as a kid – but now, as the shuttle docked into the International Space Station, my mind began to go blank. Everything became automatic; grab this, enter the station, wait for decompression, all just like the countless simulations and tests I’d gone through just to get here.

I blinked, and the next thing I knew the shuttle that had taken me this far was drifting back down to the surface.

My fellow crewmembers greeted me, and seemed to be looking at me like someone watching their favorite movie with someone who’s never seen it before. I looked out the window and saw the Earth…

And it was not what I imagined.

It was better.

So much better.

The Earth was so… small. And round. And blue, and green, and white with swirling clouds and dark with thundering storms over the Atlantic. And it was lonely against the deep blackness of space.

I understood now, what the other astronauts had meant; now that I saw it, all I wanted to do was reach down and pluck an oil baron from the surface and show them, show them all of this.

Or better yet, take my mother up here; the poems she could write about this, about just the sight of the Northern Lights from up here…

I wondered if my father would cry if he saw it. I had never seen him cry before. As a few tears dripped from my own eyes, I figured I was right.

I wished my sister could have seen it.

And the more I stared the more I wanted.

I wanted to show this view to everyone on Earth, to broadcast it, because maybe then they would understand what I now understood.

I wanted every tax-avoiding CEO to see it, every conspiracy peddler and get-rich-quick scammer, everyone and anyone that tried to squeeze that little bit of extra money out of people and just let them see:

None of that shit matters.

What good is getting more money when you already have so much of it? What good is getting that little bit more when the Earth is so small and lonely and blue?

I wondered if the Earth would always look so beautiful. Or would we, in hundreds of years, become just another stop on some other alien’s trip; just another barren world like Mars or Venus.

I smiled a little to myself as I imagined what a flat-Earther might think of the view; would they say their eyes were faulty, like our instruments supposedly were? Would they cry? Laugh? Maybe they’d just stare.

I looked at the continent I called home; somewhere on the East coast, my wife was looking at the live broadcast of the launch – or maybe she was looking outside, now that the shuttle would have landed. I wondered if she was thinking of me, right now, as I was thinking of her. I knew she was worried for me.

One of my crewmates put on some music; it was mostly the classics I expected – Across the Universe and When I’m Sixty-Four by the Beatles and Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Good – but then there were some others I didn’t expect. There was a recording of the old hymn The Seven Joys of Mary done by someone called Ethan James playing a hurdy-gurdy. And as the station began to pass into the dark side of Earth, I was strangely moved by the instrumental.

It had been some time since I’d been to any Episcopal church, but I still remembered the words to the old favorites, including this one.

The station moved fast; by the time the next to last verse had come, we were nearing the bright side of Earth again. I hummed along and thought of the words…

The next good joy that Mary had,

it was the joy of six,

to see the blessed Jesus Christ upon the crucifix…

Upon the crucifix, good Lord,

and happy may we be…

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost

for all eternity…

The song paused as we crossed over into sunlight again…

Only to kick into a louder, joyful sound as the final verse blared from the hurdy-gurdy, and the sun poured over my view of the Earth:

The next good joy that Mary had,

it was the joy of seven,

to see the blessed Jesus Christ ascending into heaven,

ascending into heaven, good Lord,

and happy may we be…

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,

for all eternity…

I asked my crewmate if they had anymore hymns; they smiled and offered to play me another classic – All People that on Earth Do Dwell. I suppose they thought it was a bit funny, to play a song like that with a view like this. I chuckled at the idea, but asked if they had another, something with a more upbeat tune.

They offered up another song from Ethan James: Quem Pastores Laudere/On Christmas Night – or as my grandmother might have called it, the Sussex carol. I agreed, and they played the recording. Again it was an instrumental, and as I looked out over the sea I tried to remember the words…

On Christmas night all Christians sing

To hear the news the angels bring.

News of great joy, news of great mirth,

News of our merciful King's birth…

All out of darkness we have light,

Which made the angels sing this night:

"Glory to God and peace to men,

Now and for evermore!

My crewmate must have had the playlist on shuffle, because after that was I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) by The Proclaimers. The rest of the crew laughed along with me, and began belting out the chorus as loudly as if they were alone at home – we were the only ones out here after all.

I would walk 500 miles

and I would walk 500 more,

just to be the man who walked 1000 miles

to fall down at your door –

The call-and-response vocals after that were split half and half almost on instinct; apparently my crew had sung this one together many times.

I wished I could have shown my wife, I knew she would get a kick out of it. Seven crewmembers from all over the Earth, all stuck in a space station the size of our living room, with the Earth itself below us – and here we were singing this silly song at the top of our lungs, as if the Earth could hear us and would start joining in at any moment. We went on like that for a while, trading songs and singing them…

And as I watched the sun set over the East coast, I whispered to my wife a goodnight.