a sense of awe

...and Discovery is home...


it's something of a perspective adjustment to listen to the last 3 minutes of a space shuttle's descent back to earth. the calm voice of the NASA commentator bringing the live play-by-play. i sat there in the car, enraptured by the event unfolding on Runway 22 at Edwards Air Force Base in CA. it amazed me that the pre-dawn touchdown scheduled for 8:12am ET for a shuttle still millions of miles away, hurtling through space at thousands of miles per hour can be *that* precise to within less than a minute. at 8:11:22 am ET, after 14 days in space, Discovery is once again earth-bound. and if i am rendered thoughtful at a mere jet being airborne for a few hours & returning to the ground pretty gracefully when you really think about it, then this feat of a space shuttle is darn near incomprehensible to me. it makes me feel small in comparison.


stopped at a traffic light at the intersection of 659 & main street in Lakeland, FL, i got an uncommon feeling of community as the announcement was made of the shuttle's safe return to earth & the woman driving the car in front of me clapped her hands. i glanced in my rear view mirror to catch the man behind me, his fists raised in silent victory. i knew without a doubt we all were listening to the same live broadcast & felt the same sense of relief. it gave me a chill. you don't find feelings of community very often anymore these days as we all go about our lives in separate circles, bound by our own thoughts & routines.


this morning i was moved. i felt quietly awestruck. both by the grand--an accomplishment of succesful rocket science (quite literally!)--and the small--a connection between people, complete strangers, that involved no words, not even eye contact, yet was indescribably powerful. i guess come to think of it, maybe that isn't small at all.