mind and muse

This last weekend I spent my Saturday at my older brother Chad’s gender reveal party for his first child. The icing was blue! The smiles of him and his fiancee were unbeatable, and the entire afternoon was filled with what I want to discuss: love. Every moment that I wasn’t socializing, I was looking around. I analyzed his friends and their high school sweetheart wives, his father whom is different than mine, and everyone in between; it was incredible. Being the sister, the future aunt if you will, I felt it all overwhelm me with gratitude. For the rest of the weekend, I felt nurturing, and incredibly sentimental not only over my family, but everything.

For the first time in my life, I saw it without a cringe, without a doubt, and with a whole lot of clarity.

On that day, Under Pressure started playing from my Spotify “Day List” on my drive home. One of my favorite, most beloved songs of all time. I also heard it was the wake up alarm to the Artemis II crew in space, on the last day of their mission. Considering that Bowie is Starman, and Freddie is Mercury, this happening makes me feel so much emotion in my soul, and the feeling it gives me is otherwise indescribable. The entire Artemis journey in general was something so spectacular to follow along with, and we’re lucky enough to have witnessed it in real time.

We saw not only history, but true love. In all forms.

When I think about last weekend with my family, and I also think about the impact of Artemis II, obviously they are completely unrelated, however, they have one thing in common. Love that stretches to the moon and back, literally. Essentially, it made me realize love is everything, but only if you choose to notice it. It’s when my brother immediately turned to my other brother and shed a tear after finding out it’s a boy, which no one else besides me noticed. It’s when the commander from Artemis named the brightest crater on the moon after his late wife, and then the rest of crew went in for a group hug. Even more than that, it’s in everyday. Perhaps I should make a list of at least 500 things that show genuine love, because to me, 500 things would be a short list. An easy read.

Speaking in terms of space, I find love to be just like the moon. We can all see it if we choose to look, some of us may see it every night, and some of us may only look when it’s full. It goes through different phases, but it’s still the same moon every night.

In general, I think more times than not we see things big or small and try to down play it, or not notice it as heavily. As Bowie says in Under Pressure, love is such an old fashioned word. Unlike clothing, trends, and interests, love never goes out of style, and it’s a constant act we cherish. To my core, I believe love is a choice, not a feeling. Of course the feeling can uprise in certain cases, but at the end of the day, the thing that makes love so special to me is the effort and the risk. I am absolutely by no means an expert, but something in me tells me it’s an action that has to be unconditional for it to really be real.

To the moon and back, whether it be a major life event, or history being made, we all share some form of love. That is ourselves, under pressure.