In my brain, there are two people.  One is down-to-earth, and one has her head in the clouds.  An aquanaut and an astronaut.

            They are not so very different, though they are millions of miles apart.  They both love the dark very much, nearly as much as they love the things that they find there.  They both wear thick suits because they are afraid of the dark that they love.  It could crush them, and they know this.  They both wear helmets which hide their faces and have tethers which keep them from being free.  That is the other way in which they are alike; they are eternally starved for adventure: a deeper sea, a darker sky.

            But they are not all the same.  The aquanaut is busy every day.  She gathers sponges and sea stars and watches the living things which move all around her.  She is determined and hardworking and responsible.  Everyone knows her.  The astronaut remains in the backmost part of the universe, floating through stars.  She is far away from any real, living things, known only by the planets that she finds.  In some ways, she does not mind this, but there are times when she wishes that she could bring someone to see the galaxies with her.

            Maybe they will meet someday.  Maybe they will find that they have the same tether; that they are held to each other.  Maybe they will learn that they breathe the air which comes from an in-between place: the shore between what is Real and what is Undiscovered.  There, on the bank of the horizon, sea-stars light the sky.  The whirlpools on the beach are galaxies, and in the curve of the most fragile shells, worlds are born.