Not-An-Astronaut

I dwell in possibility
-- Emily Dickenson

Ask me to log the hours I spent in my twenties smoking cigarettes and engaging in philosophical conversation. Ask away. I wouldn’t know where to begin. What's more many of the thoughts, the revelations about myself, literature, nature, politics are lost in murky waters of my brain. I can sometimes remember small moments, bits of a conversation, with blurry edges.

One such clear moment came to me recently. It was with my friend, Hubbard. Subtract at least ten years from my life, plop me somewhere in Colorado, insert a coffee mug (Hubbard was a non-smoker and I didn't want to be rude) in my hand and that's as near as I can approximate the edges of the scene. Here's the part my memory doesn't blur: Hubbard talked about his late-night revelation that he wouldn’t be an astronaut.

Space exploration was one of those romantic dreams lots of kids hatched in the seventies. It’s a simple equation: take the age cohort that was 5-11 years old in the late seventies, have them watch Star Wars, introduce Tang the powdered orange drink to the pallet, and (presto) you have a lot of kids who dreamed of being astronauts.

This coffee scene between twenty-somethings wasn’t Hubbard’s announcement that he planned to drop out of the Kennedy Space Center program. He just marked a moment where he recognized that his life, his studies, his choices lead down a divergent path.

The conversation named similar feelings of my own. Every now and then I look at my life and realize what it isn’t. The Not-An-Astronaut-episodes aren’t generally marked sadness or melancholy. Its more like time spent watching the door. Like I'm waiting for another rendition of myself to walk in and take over.

I spent this weekend watching the door. I can't even name what version of myself I waited for, what possibilities she might have seized. I looked past my familiars and never managed to name what wasn't there. The Not-An-Astronaut episode fades, generally without note, like some strange case of the brain-flu. Sometimes, however, I recognize what I want(ed). The clarity can give rise to small habits that fold along the edges of this life. I find myself dropping a card with my name into the travel sweepstakes bin, sign up for a landscaping class, check out foreign language tapes from the library, buy a Powerball ticket, plant atypical bulbs in the flower bed for next Spring...

In large part the new habit is fueled by nostalgia. But a small piece of me keeps my toes wet in other lives I might lead. I like to think just because those visions don't define me right now is no reason to fully believe they won't ever.

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Currently Reading: The Other by David Guterson.

The Other occupies the unenviable position of following the dizzy, sad, carried away feeling that consumed me as I read Snow Falling on Cedars by the same author. While The Other has Guterson's steady tone, his measured introspection it hasn't struck the same deep chord with me Snow Falling on Cedars did. I'm not at all unhappy to be reading the Other but uncertain whether I would recommend it. Pardon the pun, but, I'll keep ya posted.