Infinity and Beyond

“Why do you like jellyfish so much?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I guess I think they’re cute,” she said. “But one thing did occur to me when I was really focused on them. What we see before us is just one tiny part of the world. We get into the habit of thinking, This is the world, but that’s not true at all. The real world is in a much darker and deeper place than this, and most of it is occupied by jellyfish and things. We just happen to forget all that. Don’t you agree? Two thirds of the earth’s surface is ocean, and all we can see of it with the naked eye is the surface: the skin. We hardly know anything about what’s beneath the skin.”

-Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

A few weeks ago, I had to go to Atlanta for the day.  For work.  And since I work for an airline, I didn’t even leave the airport before flying back to New York.  And yet, somehow I managed to lose my ID.  This is typical.  But despite the long day, I had two lovely flights.  On the first, to ATL, I sat next to a Ghanaian woman living in New York and a man (they were strangers to each other) who was just returning after living in Ghana for a year.  This was immensely fortunate, as I was plotting a jaunt to Accra at the time. (My plans changed.  Imagine.)  In classic Awkward 3-Seater Economy Row style, I eavesdropped on their conversation for a while before interjecting questions into the conversation itself as though I’d been a participant all along.  They gave me lots of good tips on where to go and didn’t seem to judge me too harshly for jumping in.

Coming back, I was one of the last passengers to board.  I do this because I hate waiting in lines, so I’ll just sit in the gate area until the last possible second when they start threatening to cancel tickets.  Then I make my move.  I suspect this makes me a most despised creature to gate agents.  I try to make up for it by smiling a lot…not really sure that makes us even.

I showed up at my seat (aisle), and found a woman already in it, another woman in the center seat, both of rather buxom build.  Standing uncomfortably by the woman in the aisle gave me away as their seatmate.  They started in immediately,

“Oh, thank the Lord!  She’s tiny!  Oh, thank you Jesus!”  The woman in my seat apologized and asked if I’d mind sitting next to the window.  Would I!?  Truth is, I LOVE window seats, it’s the kid in me.  As I sat down, they jubilantly continued,

“We are just so happy to see you.  We were praying to God He’d send someone little.  With the two of us we didn’t have much more room here. We were afraid He’d send someone like him.” They motion to a man sitting in the seat in front of me.  I am sure he can hear them.  “But God sent us you!”

It’s a strange thing to be told you are a gift from God because you’re providing someone a little more room on the armrest.  On the one hand it’s like, I’m a blessing? Oh hey, that makes me feel really special!  But on the other hand it’s like, well, where are my tiny seatmates?  Am I in trouble or something?

The women, who I’d assumed were old friends, had actually just met on the plane—united, it seemed, by their love of God and his tiny [seatmate] miracles.  One was from Jamaica, the other from Trinidad.  So we had plenty to talk about, and I wowed them with my working knowledge of Caribbean slang and foodstuffs (fried bakes and provisions?!  I haven’t heard that in years!).  As you might suspect, the conversation eventually progressed into more pious territory and I withdrew to listen and, if I’m honest, judge.  Approaching New York, I took advantage of my window seat.  It was nighttime and the sky above was broad and flat, its inspiring limitlessness obscured by layers of pollution and clouds.  Opposite glittered a thousand tiny lights of Queens on the ground, sparking like stars, the inspiring and limitless sky below.

The women had also taken notice and turned their talk to space, as I continued my running commentary on their conversation in my mind.

“Look at that.  You know they’re selling tickets now?  You can take a ride to the moon.”  Remarked the first.  Yes, human progress is really amazing!

“Why we want to leave, to go up there?  That’s God’s land” joined the second.  What if God gave humans the capacity for progress?  Science?

“Actually that’s space.”-1st.  Finally!

“Well, what do we want out there?”-2nd.  To continue learning about the universe!

“More space?”-1st.  Science!  Adventure!

“What do we need more space for?”-2nd.  Exploration!  The unknown!

“Nothing!  For people to keep doing what they do here somewhere else!  Still being people.”-1st

And with this, the 1st woman scored a point in a debate she did not even know I was having with her.  People are going to continue being people.  On a plane, out in space, in our minds.  Whatever ‘better’ means to people, that’s what they’re going to continue working towards, even if someone’s idea of ‘better’ is completely at odds with another’s.  I don’t believe they were correct in assuming to know the intentions of higher powers or attributing arbitrary incidents to that higher power (and thereby removing human accountability…) but it reminded me to scale back my judgments a little, because they were just doing what people do.  What I’m doing right now.  As humans, we have what seems to be an innate need to explain, to understand.  And in those explanations, whatever they are, will always be some beautiful element of what it is to be human, what it is to experience life that way.  You cannot remove the observer from the observed.  Not in heavenly cosmological theories, not in earthly research.  Not in an unusual blog post that obviously misinterpreted what that woman meant.  Touché, ladies.  Touché.