I had a dream last night that I was on the moon. It seemed completely normal until it was time to leave and I was told to “jump off the edge” to get back to the spacecraft, or lunar module, or whatever. And when I did, I felt like I was falling, which as far as I understand is not something that happens in space, which I noted in the dream and momentarily hated (that falling feeling is awful at first) and then just opened up my arms and settled into it, watched the earth twirl and rise next to me, and eventually felt like its pull had me somehow cradled. Like I was caught by earth’s gravitational arms and no matter how far away I wandered or how much a a free-fall I embraced, it would hold me at a safe distance, hold all my people in place on those rugged beige cut-outs, and let me gaze in awe, in a million star-filled midnights, at the swirls of radiant blues and greens, the ocean tides, the clouds without the skies, the whole without its million tiny little complications, this sphere of mine, without me. And when I was ready to return? I leaned into the fall, picked a target and plummeted through the atmosphere until I could decipher a cityscape; pulled my parachute, caught the wind, and landed lightly on new ground.
