New York has a way of getting you down sometimes. The sky is slim in Manhattan and heavy in Brooklyn. When I first moved to Indiana, I felt sewn in by the miles of landscape between me and the ocean. Now that I’m back on the East Coast, I can feel the ocean in my skin again. In New York, it’s not the landscape that holds you in--EK tells me one big hurricane and we’ll all be under water--but the man-made buildings which anchor us down to the island.
When I was a kid I remember reading a passage from Genesis and being perplexed,
And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse “sky.” Genesis 1:6-8
I had to ask my parents what that meant. They told me people once believed what we call “outer space” was another body of water like the ocean. This made sense to me because water rains out of the sky. Also, looking at a clear, starry night and the limitless ocean seem to evoke the same kind of awe in people.
EK and I have a great view from our rooftop. We take all of our visitors up there to see the uninterrupted Manhattan skyline. The air is cool and breezy. The street noise seems remote. Something about standing on the roof makes me want to put my arms out and throw my head back to stare at that wide empty “expanse.” When EK’s family was here we took a blanket up and laid on our backs to stargaze. When my parents were here, I think we saw a UFO. We have had serious conversations, joyous occasions, phone calls, photo-ops and memorable times up there. New Yorkers love rooftop parties. Partially because we lack the square footage inside and partially because of something else. There is some inexplicable delight in a rooftop party on a summer night.
In a time when most people wonder why NASA still exists, space holds less mystery than ever. The ocean has been equally demystified. After all, we can go to an IMAX theatre and explore the deep sea or outer space in 3D.
Still, nothing compares to that feeling of staring at an empty sky or ocean. Whether you believe in creation or evolution, the most primal part of our contemporary world is outer space and the deep blue sea. It triggers something primal in us. Maybe that is why people build tall sky scrapers, want beach houses, sail around the world, pay extra money for rooftop access, etc.
I had a high school English teacher in Delaware who questioned our love of the beach. No one had ever asked us why we loved it so much and none of us could explain. A day at the beach has the same simple charm of a rooftop party. I would venture to say that our love for space and ocean is singular, primal, and inexplicable. Looking at the two bodies of “water” frees us from the lives we’re anchored to beneath the “expanse.” Or maybe, it makes us feel for a moment, that we might be swallowed whole, consumed by the great unknown in a single wave. It is that thought which slightly thrills us in a world where so much else keeps us drifting along. Maybe that too is the source of the giddy delight we feel at the beach or on the rooftops of New York City.
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