Our Great Big, Teeny Tiny Universe

Sher and Aiden's hand-drawn map of East Oreland

During these past few weeks, we have all experienced our individual worlds dwindling down to their essence. House, nuclear family. Only going outdoors within specific parameters: back yard, driveway, perhaps the local park at off-hours. This has been a painful winnowing. I personally had already been shrinking my space for several years, thanks to my worsening eyesight and increasing fear of the darkness, so not going out after sunset is truly no biggie for me. 

But still I yearn for glimpses of the Great Beyond, and a sense of my place in the vast universe. We humans are determined to make our mark, some of us on a grand scale, some of us in a quiet corner. Sheridan has always been Mister Maps. When he was in Sunday School, he would amuse himself with pencil sketches of the streets in our neighborhood, all drawn in the margins of our church bulletin to scale, and amazingly accurate; we chalked it up to his equally precise musical notation.

Becoming a parent has revived Sher’s penchant for map making, now that his son Aiden is such a rapt audience. They have trekked daily routes, from one side of East Oreland to the other, and little brother Peter has gamely pedaled his trike along to keep up. Today I accompanied them on their journey, and it was a revelation. There was “the desert” (a brown lawn that clearly needed reseeding). There was a lineup of three old cars, bright yellow, bright green, shiny black, along one short stretch of road. Did one household possess them all? Aiden and Peter rode slightly ahead of us walkers, making loops as they waited for us at the intersections.

Home again, looking at Aiden and Baba’s map, I feel grounded. I live at this corner, my neighbors are here. But, alongside my yearning to be specifically pinpointed, there is my thrilled awareness of my, of our, small place in the vast universe. 

I recently discovered the music of Eric Whitacre. He is a Juilliard grad, and has championed the concept of the Virtual Choir, where thousands of voices unite online for a single piece of music. A few years ago, Eric came up with Deep Field, where he paired a series of stunning pictures from the Hubble telescope with ethereal music. My favorite part of this wonderful video is when the camera zooms down to Earth, and many thousands of tiny images of people pop up, only to recede into the vastness of eternity. 

So how do we orient ourselves? I propose that we do both: draw our micro-maps, and at the same time wonder at the ineffable beauty of what lies beyond us. We are, indeed, the people who stroll down Garden Road on this early spring afternoon. But we are also denizens of a place so very much more vast and incredible. I challenge us to embrace both realities. We are so big; we are so small. 

 We are. And that is truly remarkable. 

Yay, us.

Deep Field-Music Inspired by the Hubble Telescope.