Ive heard that when youre in a life-or-death situation, like a car accident or a gunfight, all your senses shoot up to almost superhuman level, everything slows down, and youre hyper-aware of whats happening around you.As the shuttle careens toward the earth, the exact opposite is true for me.Everything silences, even the screams and shouts from the people on the other side of the metal door, the crashes that I pray arent bodies, the hissing of rockets, Elders cursing, my pounding heartbeat.I feel nothingnot the seat belt biting into my flesh, not my clenching jaw, nothing. My whole body is numb.Scent and taste disappear.The only thing about my body that works is my eyes,and they are filled with the image before them. The ground seems to leap up at us as we hurtle toward it. Through the blurry image of the world below us, I see the outline of landa continent. And at once, my heart lurches with the desire to know this world, to make it our home. My eyes drink up the image of the planetand my stomach sinks with the knowledge that this is a coastline Ive never seen before. I could spin a globe of Earth around and still be able to recognize the way Spain and Portugal reach into the Atlantic, the curve of the Gulf of Mexico, the pointy end of India. But this continentit dips and curves in ways I dont recognize, swirls into an unknown sea, creating peninsulas in shapes I do not know, scattering out islands in a pattern I cannot connect.And its not until I see this that I realize: this world may one day become our home,but it will never be the home I left behind.
About This Quote
About Beth Revis, Shades of Earth
Beth Revis, Shades of Earth.
Themes
- Life — Reflections on the meaning, challenges, and beauty of life