We’re Going to Mars: Stories from a Week at the Edge of the Earth
“When the rocket-red glares, the astronauts will be able to see themselves pull away from Earth. As the ship goes deeper, they will only see a sparkle of blue, and one day, not only will they not see Earth, they won't even know which way to look.
And that is why NASA needs to call Black America. They need to ask us: How did you calm your fears? How were you able to decide you were human even when everything said you were not? How did you find comfort in the face of the improbable? How was your soul able to look back and wonder?
And we will tell them what to do: To successfully go to Mars and back, you will need a song. Take some Billie Holiday for the sad days, and Charlie Parker for the happy ones, but always keep at least one good Spiritual for comfort. You will need a slice or two of meatloaf, and if you can manage it, some fried chicken in a shoebox with a nice moist lemon pound cake. A bottle of beer, because no one should go that far without a beer, and maybe a six-pack, so that if there is life on Mars, you can share. As you climb down the ladder from your spaceship to the Martian surface, look to your left, and there you'll see a smiling community quilting a black-eyed pea, watching you descend.”
- Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea (We’re Going to Mars), Nikki Giovanni, 2018
11/6/24
On Wednesday, Arabella says “it is so lonely being human.” She explains that the field of science exists to scour the universe for company, to search for signs of life, to recognize ourselves in the void.
We tell ourselves stories in order to live, I remind myself, like a true daughter of Joan Didion. Loneliness is the stuff of humanity, but Story is a promise of comfort. We are all unknowingly pursuing the same path—away from the original solitude of our mothers’ wombs, toward a vague hope of belonging. We hope to be in the stories that our friends tell, and we hope that they will be in ours.
11/7/24
Abuela is in the kitchen washing the same bowl over and over again. I am in the living room scrolling through the New York Times and searching for a story to tell myself.
We got a dog and her name is Junie, which means we are Dog People now. We spend our time petting her and cooing at her and acting like she is the only dog we have ever known. She doesn’t bark, ever, which makes me think she doesn’t know how to. She barely knows “sit,” and she knows nothing of “Electoral College.”
Uela has moved to the couch. She is showing the dog pictures of itself.
Earlier, Uela walked Mom into the kitchen and asked, “do you know who this woman is?” I said “yes, Uela, that’s my mom.” The scene felt sad, but Sad is a Story. She is content in the kitchen, washing the same bowl over and over again, liberated from politics and power, unable to feel afraid. I watch her swipe through her camera roll, and I notice her pride in being able to match the dog’s face to the animal next to her. The two gentle things sit with each other for the rest of the night.
11/9/24
On the fourth floor of the Whitney, I stare at the artist’s statement for Juanita McNeely’s nine-panel painting about her illegal abortion: “She sought the procedure when she became pregnant while in treatment for cancer, making doctors reluctant to operate on her due to the risk posed to the fetus.”
The painting is from 1969, but the story is from 1969, and 2022, and 2024, and 2027, because the same fight pours through time from mothers to daughters until it pools in the gut of a daughter who kills it.
Later, I sit in Central Park and watch two toddlers become quick friends. The sun sits low, sliding behind the skyline. I am Dirt to the world, but it’s not bad to be Dirt on a Saturday, sitting in the half-glow of a setting sun.
When my phone dies, I notice how the day becomes night, unaware that it will leave us in the dark, and I notice how we mop ourselves up to ensure the world won’t stop moving. I notice the ways our bodies become more than bodies, they become selves—a tattoo, a nose piercing, a girl’s lavender sweatpants tucked into yellow rain boots, small assertions of individuality to stave off the apocalypse.
The sky turns dark, and each building becomes a grid of light. A man dances on the Subway platform while another man holds a sign that says “Hungry. Anything Helps. God Bless.” I love that there are hundreds of worlds within New York City, and I love that both pain and dancing can be found in each one.
11/10/24
On Sunday, I walk through the silent West Village and witness two proposals, four blocks apart. Maybe love is alive in the real world. Maybe it will always be the first day of forever. Women huddle around a man with a keyboard on the sidewalk, because they know that to go to Mars and back, we will need a song.
