On Stardust and Shared Humanity

December 15, 2022. Day 35, Silver City, NM. I wandered into the small, once bustling silver-mining town of Silver City on Sunday. There is a university here where I will work for the next few days, culling research materials for the manuscript.

I am boondocking at the home of A, where my study in solitude carries on in the near company of A and others he generously hosts, freely. He happens to be an amateur astronomer with an observatory onsite. Little did this mention capture my attention until yesterday afternoon when A invited me into his lab, replete with numerous telescopes, extensive computer equipment and cameras, and electrical cords of every shape, color, and size traveling from hither to yon. By day, this building looks like any suburban garden shed. By night, he slides the roof away and opens to the night sky his viewfinders bringing the cosmos into luminous, captivating view.

He showed me images of constellations and nebulae and fading stars I cannot recall the names of. I …