Pace on Earth: Space Oddity

Friday, November 21, 2008

Space Oddity

I was in the shower at the gym yesterday and out of the blue I started whistling David Bowie's Space Oddity. I'm not sure how it got in my head but if I had a dollar for every time I said that I would be a rich man.

Today is my 34th birthday and I spent the day travelling cross-country from Freddy to Van. Somewhere above the Canadian Shield I thought of Space Oddity again as I marvelled, as I always do, at the thought of this huge hunk of metal hurtling through the air with me inside. Specifically, I thought of this line: "For here am I sitting in a tin can; Far above the world; Planet earth is blue; And theres nothing I can do". I wondered if Bowie meant us to flip the metaphor because when I looked down at the huge expanse of the Canadian hinterland I was reminded that each of us are but little specks on this big rock that is but a little speck in a vast universe. Then I put on my eye mask and dozed off and had a dream about candied yams.

Somewhere over the Rockies I woke up and got my bearings by peering out my window seat. I couldn't tell exactly where we were and that annoyed me. In my head I pulled back the mental map and put the Rockies in context to the rest of Canada, Canada in context of the rest of North America and North America in the context on the rest of the world like those photos from space missions. Space Oddity popped back into my head. That's when the irony of the title hit me and I remembered that I am a weirdo heading west to visit a bunch of other wonderful weirdos. Happy Birthday to me!