Lately, I’ve made a habit of running in the dark, a few hours before midnight.
At that hour, the world is as it was before the pandemic — silent and peaceful. Soft orange light illuminates windows; the only sound to be heard is my feet on the pavement, which is a soothing rhythm that falls into step with my heartbeat.
I run past the quietly buzzing lights at the Cumberland Farms, past slumbering restaurants decorated by signs advertising curbside service and through sleepy neighborhoods until my feet hurt and I turn back.
Once home, I sit on my deck with the porchlight switched off and look up at the night sky. My heart slows and the cool night air creeps into my bones. My view of the peaceful sky is hindered only by the eaves of my apartment’s roof and tall maple trees that seem to wish my goodnight. It’s a practice that soothes my troubled mind.
In the vastness of space, I find the peace of God.
Stretched out before me are billions of stars. From my vantage point, they appear as pinpricks of white against a black sheet of sky — tiny, even though some are upwards of 2,000 times the size of our sun.
It’s awe-inspiring and grounds me in the present. Faced with this, I find myself grateful to be alive and breathing; I have been blessed to experience the joy of beauty.
But even though I can see them, I know that some of those stars don’t exist anymore.
Relatively speaking, it takes a long time for light to travel through the void of space. Stars that are visible now might have exploded millions of years ago in a brilliant supernova, which is at once a terrible and beautiful event.
At their core, stars burn massive amounts of nuclear energy, producing an incredible amount of heat that keeps the core from collapsing under the pressure of gravity. Eventually, though, that fuel runs out and the star rapidly cools.
Suddenly, gravity wins.
In seconds, the star collapses from an incomprehensible expanse to an object the size of a sugar cube, creating the densest particle that’s known to exist. Then, in what must be an awesome display of power, the star explodes, sending shrapnel into the furthest corners of space. This stardust is comprised of elements such as carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, iron and sulfur — the building blocks of life.
Scientists hypothesize that Earth was created from an exploding star and that supernovas played an integral role in the creation of life. Thus, when I lean back in my chair, listen to my heartbeat slow and look up at the stars, most of which are many billions of years old, I’m afforded a portal to the beginning of existence.
As existence swirls around me and society seems to be more chaotic than ever, I find this reality to be as comforting as it is humbling. Life will go on as it always has.
Andy Castillo is the features editor at the Greenfield Recorder. He holds a master’s degree in creative nonfiction and can be reached at acastillo@recorder.com.