Our Cosmic Address

When Tuesday night rolled around I was stressed.  And tired.  And really didn't want to go out.  But we had tickets to another show at the planetarium and the kids and Kevin didn't want to miss it.  So I pulled myself up by the bootstraps and dragged myself the half mile down to the American Museum of Natural History.

And I'm so glad I did.

Photo credit: AMNH

Two witty, dry-humored astronomers talked us through our place in the universe at a show called Our Cosmic Address.  I should tell you that for many years as I was growing up I was sure I'd work in astronomy.  I had actually read Issac Asmiov (thanks, Dad) and just loved anything having to do with space.  And then I don't know what happened, probably puberty and teenagehood, and I drifted away from my passion.  So I'm loving the fact that both of my kids are now equally enthralled by all things beyond our planet because it means that I get to reengage my passion as well.  I bet a lot of us feel that way about having children.

And sitting in the reclining chair, looking up at the universe (and most of the images we were seeing were in real time, from real satellites, which is just too cool), I immediately felt all of the stress of the week (who am I kidding?  The entire winter) just melt away.  As we were flying from the sun, through each planet, off past Pluto, beyond our solar system and even the Milky Way, I remembered how unimportant and insignificant all of my worries are.  It was incredibly liberating.

Today the temperatures stayed above 60 degrees all day.  You'd think it was mid-summer.  Central Park was packed, people were walking around in flip-flops (which is frankly, just gross in the city).  The kids and I blew off our regularly scheduled schoolwork this morning and headed to our "secret garden" a couple blocks away.  Ella brought her knitting and we spent a couple glorious hours getting our fill of Vitamin D.  Holden's been studying about the United Nations in his Social Studies lessons lately so I brought the autobiography of Malala Yousafzai who recently spoke at the UN, to read aloud to the kids. 

I'm not sure what Ella's headscarf is about.  I didn't ask.  Maybe she was channeling Malala.