We have a space junk problem. Ever since the launch of the first satellite in 1957, derelict bits of human-made stuff — everything from busted up rocket bodies to frozen liquids dumped from spacecrafts — are orbiting around us. And there are a lot of them: as of a couple of years ago, there were 25,857 objects large enough to track, and an estimated 130 million bits 1 cm or less in size.1 As the objects collide, they break into ever smaller and more numerous pieces, becoming a dangerous fog of dizzying high speed bullets.
This poses a threat to satellites and astronauts, but if I can make it all about me for a moment: it also presents a striking resemblance to the cloud of things that could go wrong that orbit in my mind, bits left behind by every scary thought and terrible experience I’ve had, colliding into each other, multiplying. Ever since I learned about cosmic debris, I pictured my mind that way, a harrowing space, difficult to cross without being swiftly sideswiped by a fragment of impending doom.
It’s hard to say what’s changed, aside from some big fears coming true and finding them to be so much more complex and spacious than I expected — the griefs I have feared keep turning out to be strangely specked with peace and curiosity and aliveness; it’s pain, but not only pain.
And finally, I could see it. It was like driving away from the nightlights of my inner city until a gentler galaxy of possibilities appeared: all the good stuff that hasn’t happened yet. The people I’ll meet and click with immediately. The ones who will become family whose names I’ve still never heard. Their dogs. The jokes I’ve yet to laugh at and repeat for years, poems I’ll memorize that haven’t been written yet. TV shows I’ll stay up all night devouring. A good kiss. Next July’s blueberries.
Of course the future will be a mixed bag, and pain will visit, but ALSO: there is so much good stuff coming right at us - impending and inescapable joys.
I hope you can see them too.
I made this piece into a sticker for August Patreon members who are on a sticker tier. If you’d like one, make sure you’re on a tier with a sticker reward (it will say “sticker” somewhere in the title) before the end of the month (very soon!).
If you’re looking at Patreon tiers and wondering about the New Art print for this month, here it is:
I love this piece. I wrote about it here in case you missed it —
🌱 NEWS
Stickers end this weekend —
We only stock them a few times a year for a week or two, and this time is coming to a close! If you’d like to pick some up, swing by the sticker shop now. We’ll leave them up through the weekend and then that’s it until the holidays! ❄️☃️
🫧 Shop update: taking down prints, updating prices —
This fall we are finishing up that “spring cleaning” project we planned to do months ago: taking down art to make room for the new and updating our prices (a lot of stuff is still at 2017 rates). This is happening in a few weeks. If you’d like to shop the current selection at the current prices, now’s the time!
Ooh, I love that sticker! I’m excited to get it. What a fantastic thought- impending joy!