Come back to Earth

In my own way, this feels like living

As we weave our way around slow walkers and obvious tourists, the path below our feet marked with fake constellations and glow-in-the-dark paint, I try to breathe through a stuffed nose. We managed to make it to the Lowell Observatory after a particularly eventful dinner at a Thai restaurant, during which 9/11 was brought up on two separate occasions.

(My usual response is to bring up the fact that I hadn’t been alive at the time, which prompted the two older boys to gawk at the bench of ‘03 babies in mock horror.)

Despite living in Arizona my entire life, I cannot say for certain that I’ve ever made it to the observatory before, and as such, I try to take in each exhibit fully. We’d spent about an hour inside, messing around with all of the light exhibits and disturbing more reserved patrons with our loud jokes, before meandering through the sliding glass doors.

I cannot handle the cold. That much has been made obvious all night, but since this is my first time meeting C’s friends, I try my hardest not to complain (too often). They are good company, and I find myself enjoying their jokes, even those about throwing each other to the bottom of a well.

I wrap the thick denim of my coat tighter around myself, a set of folded wings, and trudge down the dark path. I can only navigate by following the back of C’s familiar head.

Like usual, I’ve intentionally left my glasses behind. When asked why I do this, my most frequent response is that I simply trust the people I’m with or that I’d spaced it entirely. In reality, I prefer the lack of clarity — the light fuzziness around the borders of every person, their total equality as shadows instead of real people. It makes the physical world duller, just for a little while.

But at night, I go totally blind. I rely on sound and proximity now, keeping as close to the group as I can without running directly into them.

There are two long lines on the observation deck, and we, like suckers, fall into them without any real awareness of where they’ll lead.

“It’s got to be for something good,” D says, “if all these people are willing to wait.”

It ends up being worth it. When we approach the front, we are ushered up a ladder one by one. At the top, we press our cold faces against the even colder metal eyepiece of a giant telescope. Inside, two stars. They sit together against the midnight-blue, rippling cloak of the night sky.

“They’re double stars,” the worker to my left explains to our group as I climb the metal scaffolding. “A pair of stars that appear close to each other to us, here on Earth.”

He goes on to explain the difference between those two stars and our own sun, which spends its existence alone.

“Sounds lonely,” I say to no one in particular.

Someone chuckles under their breath. I wasn’t joking. I envision all that empty space pressing down around it, thick and heavy and choking. And still the sun shines. Alone.

The people behind us are an elderly couple, bundled in thick coats, wool scarves, and dark gloves. I imagine their hands beneath the fabric — thin skin, freckled with age spots and dark veins, curved in all the right places from decades of holding onto each other. The old man extends his arm as his wife climbs the rickety steps. He trembles, too weak to really support her, yet he tries anyway.

I let my eyes linger on them for a long second, fighting the thoughts. A discarded set of shoes, laces tied and slung over a telephone wire. My grandpa, at home by himself, sitting up in his old recliner. The bed waiting for me in Peoria that will always stay half empty.

We end up walking around the woods for twenty extra minutes after our small group is split in half. Rejoining, we head back into town, settling in by the fires at a Cornish Pasty Co. I inform C’s friends that we have a location in Phoenix, near my old journalism classes. They offer me small “oohs” to fill the silence.

Even though I haven’t known them before tonight, we have formed connections. Shared jokes (i.e., “soul of a girl, mind of a woman, body of a panther”). Ciders that touch all our lips. A coupe glass we conspire to steal (but fail to actually do).

I draw a deck of cards out of my purse, and they celebrate. We play BULLSHIT and lie to each other. We switch seats to get closer to the fire pit. We laugh and catch the eyes of strangers.

It is nights like tonight that make me realize I could abandon my life whenever I wanted. There is always another version of myself I could dip into, wear like freshly dry-cleaned clothes in the right weather. My birthday is in a month, and if I so desired, I could disappear before it.

As C shuffles the cards (she is the only one out of all five of us who actually knows how), I dip my head back, looking to the night sky above us. Now, without the cool telescope metal digging into my cheek, I see nothing specific. Only the darkness, unending. But just the thought of those double stars has my mind reeling. Tears edge into the corners of my vision. Together, to us, but in reality, still divided by light-years of emptiness.

I could quit my job with a single email. It would be irresponsible of me, but it’s something I could physically do if I wanted.

I could take a vow of silence, move into a convent in Rome, and become a nun. I’ve always admired their unyielding devotion, their thick spools of grace and gratitude. I could take the next flight to Maui, track down my old coworker from the coffee hut, and start picking fruit on her farm. Mango juice dribbling off my chin next to a loud shore. I could move to New York and struggle as an artist, recite shitty poetry at open mic nights where people talk over you and loudly order espresso martinis. I could live my life like it’s Sex and Rage; bleach my hair in the sun’s rays and learn to surf between blackouts on the barge.

C leans close to me, pushing a stack of seven cards in my direction. The smell of her vanilla warmth draws me back to the table, to the game.

“You’re up,” she says.

I look over the cards before laying one out, face down.

“One ace,” I say, lying through my teeth.