When I was fourteen years old, I saw a UFO. I was stargazing at a drive-in movie. Because the theater
was far away from city lights, and since we usually went to something we could talk through — the latest
addition to an action film franchise or a family-friendly comedy— I would let my attention drift. I was looking
at a patch of sky above the tall pines that surrounded the field of parked cars. I did not grasp what I was seeing
immediately: four distinct lights of a rectangular shape, larger than stars, unblinking, unmoving, two of them
with a reddish glow. After a minute of staring, the object departed as though at hyper speed, leaving a trail in its
wake — its absence made visible.
I don’t remember what movie I was there to see, and I don’t remember who I was with, though it was at
least my mother and two younger sisters. More than likely, we had a friend or two with us as well. It was quite
usual for us to stretch the seating of our minivan to the max. We may even have met up with family members
who lived near the theater. What I do remember is that — whoever I was with — I told no one about what I had
seen.
Sixteen years later, I told my husband. By that point, we had been together for ten years, four of them
married. We had just been to dinner at a restaurant on the edge of a state forest.
“This is a great spot to see shooting stars,” he commented as we headed home. “We should come out
here for a meteor shower or something.”
“That would be cool. You know,” I began, “I saw a UFO once.” I described to him what I’d seen. When
I was finished, I asked, “Do you believe me?” He said yes. “Do you think I’m crazy?” He shook his head no.
I did not feel as though I had unburdened myself of a secret I was keeping. In fact, I couldn’t remember
the last time I had thought about the experience. It amazed me how deeply and successfully I had buried it —
starting the night it happened. Why didn’t I tell anyone?
Do you believe me?
Do you think I’m crazy?
***
At the start of the pandemic, I allowed myself to feel wounded by my sisters’ relationship with each
other. They regularly called and FaceTimed before the onset of social distancing and the call for all of us to shift
to a virtual world. While all three of us are close, they are closer both in age and intimacy. Specifically, my
middle sister prefers our little sister to me, and without family dinners or parties to throw us together, I felt
unmoored — jealous even though I had never made an effort to participate in their regular communications,
adult sleepovers, or their mutual interests. I was so distraught that I was moved to make a comic about it which
was published on a public Instagram account that was compiling pandemic stories. I was terrified that someone
who knew me would see it and share it with my sister.
Prior to the pandemic, I had started a course in Wicca, and alongside it developed my own interest in
astrology. My instructor for the course offered Akashic Records readings, and in August I scheduled one for my
husband and myself. In the course of the reading we learned about our soul’s past experiences on earth, the
vows we made, and from where in the universe our souls had journeyed. All of this information was used to
help us align with our current purpose here -- what we are meant to learn in this go-round.
While the hour-long reading left me with a great deal of information to process, the tidbit I would
continue to reflect on -- one of the first things she shared -- was that our souls were from completely different
places in what we were asked to imagine as a cosmic web of sky. How perilous and how precious, that out of
everything that could be, everywhere we could be, and everyone we could be with, we find ourselves here. My
mind stuttered at the idea that we had crossed all of space and time to share this experience with the people we
were sharing it with. Despite other frameworks I’d grown up with around the idea of the soul, family, and love,
this explanation impacted me profoundly, giving my life and relationships the weight of destiny rather than the
lightness of happenstance.
***
When I teach Sci-Fi film or literature courses, I always start by showing the short film The Kármán Line
directed by Oscar Sharp and written by Dawn King. It stars Olivia Colman as a wife and mother who begins to
float away from the earth. Her ascent is gradual, but the film makes clear that the length of the process does not
at all lighten the enormous grief of her husband and daughter as she moves steadily upwards toward the titular
boundary between earth’s atmosphere and outer space.
After showing the film, and often during it, I question my choice. When I turn on the lights in the
classroom, there are more than a few individuals wiping tears from their eyes. It takes some time before the
discussion can really get going. The conceit of growing space is agonizing. When Colman is no longer
reachable by ladder, floating in a winter jacket in the sky, we all grieve at our shared ignorance -- that we could
have ever taken for granted the nearness of our loved ones.
***
When I told my mother and sisters about my Akashic Record reading, we were all having dinner
together at my house. After growing accustomed to the “new normal,” we orchestrated safer outdoor and
socially distant get-togethers with takeout from local restaurants and ample hand sanitizer. We avoided our
usual hello and goodbye hugs, but were glad nevertheless to be together more regularly. As glad anyway, it had
seemed to me, as my middle sister could be in my presence. She often ordered little or nothing from the
restaurants and would typically make an excuse to arrive late or leave early. On this evening, she apologized for
her early leave-taking just as I began to talk about my experience.
For some reason, this emboldened me to tell my story with far more (false) confidence. I emphasized the
part where I was told my soul had chosen my mother specifically to enhance my vow for caretaking -- an
emphasis I realize now as a childish attempt to shield me from my sisters’ closeness by holding up my
relationship with our mom. I also brought in my own amateur astrological interpretations of their water suns
juxtaposed with my air sun. “We process things differently,” I shrugged, feigning indifference to their habit of
processing together. My little sister left not too long after that.
Talking with my mom before she left, I said that while I was -- and to some degree always had been --
envious of their connection, I was now resigned to my status as an outsider. I supposed we were close enough.
“I think they’re just more vulnerable with each other than you tend to be with them,” she said.
That me not being vulnerable with my sisters could have been the source of our distance had never
occurred to me before. That I was responsible for the space between us shocked me into reflection: what wasn’t
I sharing? And why?
Do you believe me?
Do you think I’m crazy?
I began to look at exchanges I’d avoided having with them. Things I chose to text rather than call about.
My resistance to video calls. I began to consciously seek them out more. I tried to be more open, pushing at the
edges of my resistance. I started requesting FaceTimes. I disclosed a difficulty I’d been having at work, and my
younger sister called me in the middle of the day to see how I was doing. At first, I raised my old defenses: “I’m
fine,” I told her, “I don’t want you to think I’m pathetic or depressed. I’m just venting.” She said she didn’t
think that; she just wanted to check on me. We talked about something else and hung up.
Afterward, I texted her in a rush, explaining that this is my greatest fear -- that I’ll seem unstable if I
share any emotional reaction with them. My typical approach is to experience that part on my own, process it
through a more rational lens, and share the outcome of that at some later date: a story packaged exactly as I
want to tell it rather than the incoherent first draft.
***
In Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise, Julie Delpy’s character, Celine, tells Ethan Hawke’s Jesse, “I
believe that if there’s any kind of God it wouldn’t be in any of us, not you or me but just this little space in
between. If there’s any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone, sharing
something. I know, it’s almost impossible to succeed but who cares really? The answer must be in the attempt.”
I saw this film around the same time that I saw the UFO, but this line stands out with new meaning to me now. I
have started to think about space on a near daily basis: why I leave so much of it between those I love and who
love me. To think of the space we’ve conquered to be here together now, all for me to keep that little distance. I
keep it to protect myself from criticism, from anything I don’t want to hear, but I’ve learned that there is so
much value in hearing what I cannot tell myself. It’s why our souls are here after all: to connect however briefly
on this earthly plane. The attempt to cross that space between ourselves and others may be the closest thing to
finding God or at least a secular meaning in our lives. It may be almost impossible to succeed, but I’ve finally
decided it’s worth the risk to try.