Month: February 2019

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Touching Opportunity

This week, a lot of people have taken a chance – an Opportunity, if you will – to look to the heavens and thank the little robot that could.

The story’s well-known by now. How the planned mission of the Mars rover Opportunity was for 90 days. How, like other rovers before it, it kept going long past its expiration date – by more than 14 years, in fact.

And now, like other rovers before it, it’s gone silent. Nothing had been heard from it since last June, when a Martian dust storm covered its solar cells. After hoping that another wind would clear the rover and allow it to recharge, NASA finally declared Opportunity “dead.”

“The last message they received was basically ‘My battery is low and it’s getting dark,’” science writer Jacob Margolis tweeted. The words were Margolis’s poetic interpretation of the June signal, not a literal sentence from Opportunity. But the “last words” added an extra touch of heartbreak to the moment, turning it from the shutdown of a machine to the silencing of a beloved explorer.

Does that sound silly? I don’t see why.

Caring for things is what we do. Even when they can’t care back.

We read books or watch movies and anguish over the fate of people who never existed, except in our minds.

We name cars and say goodbye to childhood homes, so interwoven with our lives that we can’t imagine their absence.

We become part of a story. We invest a little, or a lot, of ourselves in it. And when a good story ends, it touches us. It leaves us a little different for the experience.

But with a good story, there’s always one chapter left, even after the volume is closed. The one that we write.

Having taken this story into our hearts, what do we do with it?

That, too, may sound a little odd. Most of us, after the age of six, don’t try to don a cape and cowl and fight evil on the streets after watching a superhero movie. One does not simply walk into Mordor after reading or viewing The Lord of the Rings, or search crowds for Rhett Butler after completing Gone With The Wind, or build up a high-tech loadout after reading Tom Clancy. (OK, there may be some exceptions on that last one.)

But we do take Lessons. Inspiration. Examples. Even hope. The stories we invest in, the people and experiences we treasure, all teach us something. And maybe even inspire us to a next step.

It might be the simple reassurance that, even if they can’t fly or shoot energy beams, heroes may already be among us, looking just like you and me – could maybe even be you and me.

It may be the reminder that fighting evil is a hard and grueling task, but that even small actions can add up to huge differences, even without the aid of a magic ring or an Elvish sword.

It can even be the lesson, taught by a machine of our own making, that we can be capable of so much more than we believe. That we can keep going beyond everyone’s expectations, even our own.

Maybe even far enough to one day thank Opportunity in person.

The skies don’t have to be the limit. The story can go where we choose to take it, both inside us and beyond us. That’s inspiring to me as a writer, as a space geek, and even as a human being.

Care. Follow where it takes you. Write the next story.

After all, Opportunity is where we choose to find it.

 

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Watching the Mirror

As the song goes, just one look was all it took.

Mind you, February has always been a magical time for Missy. Not, I might add, because of the weather. Our developmentally disabled ward has been known to declare “I’m cold” when the weather dips below a sunny 70 degrees. When Colorado becomes a realm of ice, snow, and penetrating wind – suffice to say it gets remarked on. Many times.

Which makes it ironic that many of Missy’s favorite experiences are wintertime ones. Like Christmas light tours. Or bowling with old friends. Or especially the February “prom” for the disabled. Dress up in fancy clothes and dance the night away? It would take the White Witch herself to keep Missy away from that.

The night was in full swing – as was Missy, dancing with me and any volunteer within a 20-foot radius – when I noticed something. As Missy was having a blast near the edge of the stage, the lead singer of the band had spotted her and begun mirroring her movements, keeping up with each step, sway, and raising of hands.

Missy then spotted him. Her smile and her eyes widened. For the next couple of minutes, she and the front man danced together without coming near each other, their eyes and their moves perfectly aligned. When the song ended, Missy’s excited face could have outshone any stage light – especially when the singer acknowledged her from the stage with a gesture.

Dance like no one’s watching, they say. But someone had been. And it made the night that much more special.

Someone was watching.

Someone usually is.

As I write that, I realize how ominous that may sound. After all, we live in an age where privacy may seem to be a nostalgic memory. Numerous stories of data hacks have made it clear how often we’re being profiled without our knowledge, never mind the volume of data we willingly share with friends, family, and barely-met acquaintances across the world.

But that’s not where I’m going with this. This is something older than the internet. Maybe even older than recorded information in any form.

Someone is watching.

Someone is learning from you.

Stephen Sondheim put it well in “Into The Woods”:

Careful the things you say, children will listen.

Careful the things you do, children will see and learn.

We all teach by example. And it’s not just to kids. Every day, whether we know it or not, we make ourselves a model for someone else. What we say, what we do, what we embrace or avoid gets noticed and learned from.

That can sound a little intimidating – “Oh, my gosh, I’d better be on my best behavior!” But if you think about it, it’s kind of endearing. Somewhere, someone has decided – consciously or not – that they want to be like you. That you’re cool. That something you do is worth their attention.

It may be subtle. We may not notice right away. But each of us quietly shapes the world.

Admittedly, that does put a little responsibility on us. It means we don’t exist in isolation, that we can’t disclaim any effect on others. Even if we don’t have to turn into Clark Kent, The Super Boy Scout, we still have to think, at least a little, about what we put into the world, because it will come back to us. We know this, even if we don’t think about it all the time – “Do unto others,” after all, is one of the oldest rules there is in almost any culture.

What we would see, we must be.

But it’s an exciting thought. It means we can put beauty in the world as easily as anger. It means that our joy, our wonder, our kindness, can create ripples that may someday lead to a wave. It means we have hope – that we can build hope.

We’re not alone. And that’s a wonderful thing. Even on the coldest night, a friend you’ve never met may just be waiting for your cue to start the dance.

Just ask Missy.

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Unlocking the Cave

Magic hides in the strangest places. And if the University of Bristol didn’t know that before, it certainly does now.

The British college made headlines a few days ago when it realized that one of its 16th-century texts contained something even older – pieces of a medieval manuscript about King Arthur and the wizard Merlin. In them, the magical advisor not only plans a battle for the Round Table but leads the charge, carrying a dragon banner that spits actual fire.

Sounds like Michael Bay just found his next blockbuster action movie, doesn’t it?

When my friends started sending me the story, I didn’t know whether to be impressed or amused. On the one hand, I’ve always been a sucker for the fantastic and the legendary, and it’s beyond amazing to see an old tale take on new life like this.  On the other hand – was this a carefully veiled hint? Like a lot of writers, I tend to attract clutter, and it’s not impossible that a lost rough draft of “Beowulf” could be hiding somewhere in my old shelves and stacks, waiting for the next archaeological dig …. er, spring cleaning.

(Side note: I’m hardly the only one. Heaven knows that the purse of our developmentally disabled ward, Missy, could be concealing several Arthurian cycles, the Holy Grail, and the secret treasure of Al Capone if we dug down far enough. But that’s another story)

But never mind the cleaning for now. (I’m good at that.) At its heart, this new discovery stirs up a lot of hope for me. No, it’s not going to cure cancer, or put a man on Mars, or restore the Denver Broncos to their rightful prominence in the football world. But it’s a reminder – one we need badly.

Wonder can live anywhere.

In 16 years as a newspaper reporter, I learned that everyone holds a story inside them, that any place can have a tale told. The bent old man who once fought in France. The office workers, attorneys, and air traffic controllers who also light up audiences as novelists, actors, and musicians. The young woman with pink hair holding a quiet, hidden pain that could break hearts – and a strength that could shake mountains.

Ordinary people? No. There are no ordinary people. Everyone has something more inside than the eye can see.

Even us.

And that may be the hardest to believe of all.

It’s appropriate that it was a Merlin story that triggered all this. One of the more famous Arthurian stories is about how an enchantress named Nimue learns the secret of Merlin’s power and then uses it to seal him away – in a cave, or a tree, or some other enchanted prison, depending on the tale. Magic and wonder beyond belief, carefully hidden where no one will ever see it.

Sound familiar? It should.

“Oh, no one wants to hear about that.”

“They wouldn’t look at me the same if they knew.”

“This isn’t good enough for anyone to see.”

Or maybe it’s not even in words. Just an awareness of the face we put on, and the real person somewhere inside.

It’s not easy to let it out sometimes. It can take honesty and persistence and courage. It can certainly mean dealing with people who don’t understand what they see, who would rather the cave stay sealed. That’s always easier.

But if the door opens – magic can enter through it. Maybe a tale that enraptures the world. Maybe just a bit more kindness to make the world a more bearable place. Whatever it is, we need it. It belongs here.

A story, to live, must be told. Hidden in the binding, it says nothing. Brought into the light of day, it can melt 800 years like yesterday’s snowfall.

Tell your story. Open your cave. Share your magic.

And if it adds a fire-breathing dragon banner to the world, so much the better.