Where No One has Gone Before: A Meditation on the Stunted Human Race

Lauren Lyons, a SpaceX Mission Integration Engineer, and NASA crew members commentate

While riots raged in Minnesota and across the nation over the wrongful death of George Floyd and Michigan police fired on civilians in their own homes and arrested members of the media on live tv for reporting from the scene, SpaceX successfully launched a manned commercial expedition into space. The juxtaposition was stark.

Separation of Space Shuttle | Streets of Minneapolis

I grew up watching Star Trek: The Next Generation; I'm obsessed with tackling novel ideas and unexplored territories. As a child of Star Trek, "race", for me, was an issue I was completely ignorant of until the 7th grade. It was one of the most unsettling moments of my life when revelations of a horrific past drove an invisible wedge between me and my classmates of color. It was an education that I sometimes think I've been worse-off for knowing. To me, constantly being reminded that some people are keeping these toxic divisions alive is like watching someone argue that the Earth is the center of the universe. I just want to say, "We've been through this, guys. The facts are in, and it's not. Let's stop spinning our wheels and get on with the real work."

When I was growing up, I thought that work would be the creation of replicators, teleporters, and the achievement of warp speed. Now I think it's climate change, systemic corruption, consolidation of wealth, class inequality… But never for a second did I dream that we should be here 300 millennia since the birth of the human race, 2+ millennia from Jesus and Buddha, 1.5 centuries on from Lincoln and half a century since MLK… still having this same conversation. That is embarrassing.

Nichelle Nichols as Communications Officer Nyota Uhura (1966-1991)

"Race" is an outdated idea that has long-since been debunked. It was invented by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in 1779. Your ancestors' proximity to the sun explains how much melanin your body produces; it's nothing but a permanent tan for people who come from generations who needed it. Trace anyone back far enough, and we all had it: all of the earliest human fossils come from the region of the African continent. The farther we exist from the equator and the deeper indoors, the more translucent we become - our cells effectively opening the blinds as they strain for the slightest sip of that sweet vitamin D.

(And if you're coming from a Christian orthodox background in America, well: the scriptures were all discovered in the Middle-East. Which is also the home of Bethlehem. So Jesus had a perma-tan, too.)

There's more genetic disparity between two fruit flies than between two human beings. We have different cultures, inherited traits, unique heritage, upbringing, all that - sure. But we're fundamentally the same thing. And frankly, I wouldn't treat a rat the way some people treat each other.

Guinan, "The Measure of a Man" (13 February 1989) by Melinda M. Snodgrass

"Us" vs "them" mentality is born of struggle and suffering. People don't have enough, they get tribal, they blame and suspect the other guy - finding superficial reasons to "otherize", dehumanize and vilify. It's an act of desperation and of helplessness born from the fury of a faceless enemy: a power structure with no single source, no target point. The feelings are real but the conclusion is wrong.

I have a lot of problems, but at least I don't have to worry about being negatively profiled, over-incarcerated, abused, and murdered by the so-called "justice" system. Or being falsely accused for asking an identically-surnamed parkgoer to observe the leash law. Or being arrested for reporting the news.

Look at how much worse the world would be if not for black pioneers. No blood banks, pacemakers, gas masks, potato chips, automatic cars... no Star Trek-style elevator doors! And who knows where the Space Shuttle program would be. Imagine where we COULD be, were opportunities equal.

People are like cats; they come in all colors. If you are still entertaining racist thoughts - it's 2020. Time to wake the fuck up. The alarm has been ringing for centuries, and we're disgustingly late for the future.

You know, there are some words I've known since I was a schoolboy. "With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." Those words were uttered by Judge Aaron Satie as wisdom and warning. The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged.

- Jean-Luc Picard, "The Drumhead" (29 April 1991) by Jeri Taylor

Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: the Next Generation (1987-1994)

Engage.

This was my Home

For Labor Day weekend, I headed up to my parents' home to decompress.  I was one week into the new semester and should have sequestered myself in a back room with my books, but I couldn't. My calendar for the imminent future was packed, and I didn't know when I'd be back.  Dad had also just returned from Sacramento, where he works during the summer.  Saturday had brought an autumn chill, so he built a fire in the fire pit and we propped our feet around it, breathing in the smell of campfire and pine as we conversed over margaritas and watched the light show cast over the mountain by the setting sun.

Dad and a handful of volunteers devoted Sunday morning to installing signs he had made for an interpretive trail at the elementary school.  Mum told me the trail was an especially nice one, so I made a mental note to visit it in the near future, while the leaves are turning.  The summer heat returned for what we hoped was a last hurrah, so we spent the afternoon at the community pool for potentially the last swim of the season.  I sat on the grass staring at the white domed roof of the enclosing structure framed against green peaked mountains and towering pines, soaking in the cinematic beauty of the scene.  In the evening, dad put on music while he and mum gradually infused the house with smells of gravy and parmesan and other delectable aromas. I danced in the living room to Celtic instrumentals, safely embraced by the honey-pine walls of our home.

On Monday, dad placed a large poster board in front of me, curious if I'd remember it.  It was plastered with cutout drawings, poetry, and a fictional biography I had created in grade school.  Though I could not have summoned any recollection without this tangible invocation, one glimpse transported me back decades.  I could feel the plastic scissors in my hands, smell the Elmer's glue, remember the view from the stage when I delivered my speech.  We talked about how hilarious it was to still have it on hand, how impractical to keep, and how impossible to let go of.  We all agreed that we should have these things digitally scanned in the future, for easier storage.  Then we put it away in the attic.

On Tuesday I should have returned to the valley, the city, the hamster wheel that is life when you're attempting to establish one.  But I wasn't ready.  The hour of departure ticked by as I sat on the couch engrossed in conversation that the lecture hall failed to lure me away from.  I guess I am still not quite a grown up.  "One more day" my inner child protested as my inner adult hit the snooze.

That evening we watched a film in the little-used room that was recently converted into the ghost of my grandparents' cabin.  My last remaining grandparent passed away last year, and his living room is now in our basement.  We sat on my grandparents' living room chairs watching a film on their television under the glow of their living room lamps, which my grandma had made.  Surrounded by their treasures, I was transported to the favorite place of my childhood, ensconced within the warmth of that sacred place as though it never changed.

On Wednesday as I prepared to depart, I gathered some towels that had been folded in a corner of my bedroom.  Underneath those was a brand new drawing tablet I had received for my birthday.  It was waiting until I could afford a computer that could accommodate it.  This, in turn, was nested within a brand new bike basket, which was waiting until I could afford the accompanying rack.  These I looked at wistfully for a moment, and left where they were.

On Saturday, September 12th, my parents were preparing for a dinner party when the plumes of smoke first appeared beyond the deck.  Just as they'd begun loading the car, the sheriff arrived with an order to leave.  The fire had begun a few blocks away.  It exploded to 40,000 acres within hours.  By evening, the media was referring to our entire town in the past tense.

Photo by Kent Porter of Press Democrat, 2015

That night I lay in bed mentally wandering the walls of my family home, taking inventory.  Family pictures on the walls with no digital counterpart... my parents sitting on a grassy hill, before they were married, my uncle Bob who died in the war, grandparents and great-grandparents, our favorite family portrait from that time we took mum on the Napa wine train.

I see my dad's National Geographic collection, which he's been collecting for my lifetime.  I see his handmade furniture.  I see the globe my granddad used to hold in his hands, tracking our travels on a map with his finger.  I see all of my mother's original paintings, her handwritten journals, her correspondences with her sister, now deceased.  I see the letter composed in crayon that my militantly unsentimental dad kept in his cabinet.  I see the antique medicine bottles we found in an old shed, still sealed with hundred-year-old tablets.  I see our childhood schoolwork and toys.  I see the furniture that my mum made laway payments for months upon end to afford.

The newspaper has posted pictures of complete devastation.  They release statements that "all is gone" within a 3 mile radius  at which we stood near the center.  I spend hours scouring the internet for any comment, any photo, any shred of reference to our neighborhood.  Anything to give me the slightest clue, the merest hope that we still have a home.  But the closer I get, the more remote seem the chances.  A youtube video of a burning building is identified to be across from ours.  A resort down the block is reduced to smoldering embers.  As I walk through the halls of my family home in my mind, I desperately want to reach out and grab the things I can still clearly picture - snatch them out of the past into permanence.  But a new reality is taking shape.  I see myself standing in a field of ash.  My existence is suddenly defined by a photo of a sign hung askance from a once-charming trellis now isolated in a barren landscape.  It reads, "This is where I belong".  My past is gone.  Everything has been erased, and all that remains is pencil dust.

Captured by Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle

 A few weeks ago my mum was trying to place a tray on a shelf just out of reach above the dishwasher.  It fell and struck a handmade ceramic mug in the top rack which she had won in a Christmas raffle at the gallery where she used to work.  It reminded her of the community she'd belonged to, and she still drank her morning coffee from it every day.  It broke under the impact.  My mum has lost a lot in recent years.  She lost her sister to cancer, and her parents more recently to age and disease.  What little remains of happier times becomes priceless, anchoring us to memories ever more remote.  It was just one mug, but it was also an era.  It had a value impossible to express.

It was just one mug, worthy of grief.  

Where do you begin to grieve for a household?

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At 12:27pm on September 14th I received photographic confirmation that ours was among the properties to survive the firestorm.  We were literally on the perimeter of the fireline.  This post is dedicated to the real victims of the #valleyfire and other natural disasters still faced with this momentous reality.  I wish for you strength of spirit and speed of healing.  May the worst be behind us.

Relationships are like Shoes

Relationships are like shoes.

The chances that you are going to walk into the nearest shoe store and discover perfection in the first pair you approach are highly improbable.  Even supposing you did, how would you know?  Suppose they are the first pair of shoes you have ever had the luxury to experience.  If you are inclined to enjoy the sensation of foot armor, then a life of barren feet will predispose you to exalt in even the shoddiest pair conceived.

To find the essential pair, you are going to have to try on a lot of shoes, and you will be visiting more than one shop.  But here's the difference: this is an analogy about relationships.  So, provided you're not polyamorous, you can only have one set of shoes, not a harem in the closet.  This choice has to count.

Some of the shoes will have the perfect aesthetic.  The moment you lay eyes on them, there will be an instant connection.  You'll know that these shoes were made for you.  Until you try them on, and then it's another story.  You may look fantastic in them, but there's torture in every step.

Some will be hard pressed to capture your attention at all.  You'll be thanking whatever karma fairies thrust them in front of you because they're not what you were looking for - with your eyes. 
You put them on, though, and it's all kinds of paradise.  But then maybe you walk to the mirror and realize they have neon pink flamingo heads popping out of the toes.  They repel you.  Your relationship is half a lie.  You can never love all of them.  And you can only have one pair of shoes.

You'll try shoes that are too short, too large, too narrow in the toe, too pinched in the heel, too unsupported in the arch, too gaudy, too grisly, too high class, too unrefined, too casual, too high maintenance, and too many things to anticipate.

And then, through patience and diligence, one day you are going to find a pair that fits you in all the crucial aspects.  A pair that compliments you so well it may almost have been tailor made, yet possesses sufficient novelty to hold your interest.

And now and then even this beloved pair will allow a rock to breach its barriers and, inadvertent or no, render you a wound.  And eventually this pair will bear testament to your shared history together with a mounting collection of scuffs and wear.  But the true test of their worth will be in how much (or little) these things matter to you against the measure of their merits. 

Merits you will be sufficiently versed, by now, to appreciate.