I haven't always felt disconnected.
But before that first remembered disconnect, I was disconnected. At birth I was given up for adoption, and my dad's first wife left when I was two.
A lesser disconnection, but the first remembered: Aunt Alice, my nanny - the earliest mother figure I still remember...
The first time my new stepmom hit me - at five-years old - I remember a disconnect, a violent shattering.
At eight, I remember huddling outside in the dark, hiding, scared. Trying to figure out where I could go, how I would eat. Stepmom had yelled at me "Tonight there is only going to be one of us in this house." She hadn't left. I was alone in the dark. The world was huge. I was facing how helpless I was in it. I was scared.
Eventually my dad found me. He brought me inside, but he never said anything. I'm not sure he had any idea what happened. At this point, we didn't discuss these things. There never would be a point where we would.
Five different elementary schools.
So many disconnects...
I developed an interest in astronomy early. It might have been looking through my dad's surveying transit, pointing it at the moon. I remember a nice little spyglass from my step-grandma that I made a point to keep track of it through our many uprootings.
Perhaps my best present from my dad (ever!) was a "real" telescope I got on our Christmas trip to Buffalo when i was nine (I had begged for one). He often bought us great toys, but the scope was the one I still have with me. And his surveyor's transit.
My happy places are the beach and a dark sky with a scope. The beach was a family thing from birth. I'll always need a beach nearby, even if I seldom visit. The astronomy was my own.
Seeing the grandeur of the universe is humbling. It's also empowering. That it's entirely lifeless (to the absolute best of our knowledge) except for us: you can't process how small but HUGE we are. But you can feel it.
There's a profound deep awe in witnessing it.
Point a scope at a galaxy. A trillion stars, ten trillion possible worlds. We can't even imagine the number itself, much less that many countless possible lives.
Each new wonder a joy in the physics of it, but it's not about the things.
There's an implicit "I wonder what it's like to live there? What would it be like?"
"And what of civilizations?" "Have they 'made it'?" Are they safe? Are they wondrous? Do they continually revel in how utterly amazing it is to be alive?
Do we?
I wish we could talk.
One thing about sitting in the dark at a telescope's eyepiece (as opposed to viewing astro photographs): you actually have particles (photons) that the wonder ejected, creating a continuous path from it, through the scope, to your eyeball. A continuous path from it to you. An actual real physical connection. Potentially millions of light years long and millions of years in the making. It is barely conceivable. But it's visceral, it touches you. It. Touches. You.
Can it heal you? No, but it's a start.
Humans need emotional interaction.
Outreach is huge in the amateur astronomer community. Half is the joy of the wonder itself. Half is the joy of sharing the joy. Half is the all the joy interfering with our math (don't trust any numbers you hear at a telescope).
We've all tried to connect with others through music, films and books. We all know how low-percentage these efforts are. How many people really appreciate Kate Bush, Devin Townsend, Suzanne Bier and Peter Watts the way they should? But give them their first view of Saturn through a scope, and it's like their first (good) kiss. They'll never forget that moment. And like a 90% success rate. Unbeatable.
It's a beautiful universe and a beautiful thing to share.
But I sometimes wonder if all the things I love in life are simply graspings to be safe, to connect. Science is predictable, it's stable. It's safe. It's comforting that the universe is orderly. Is it a wonder for me or a refuge?
How many of my fellow astronomers huddled in the dark were or are broken, searching for connection?
I wonder if this setting up in the dark open to the photonic tendrils from the most glorious and mind-bending objects in the heavens is simply seeking confirmation that the universe is huge and the dark isn't empty and that we are safe.
Perhaps when we put our eye to a scope what we really see is that, even in a universe so unimaginably huge, we are all connected and - most fundamentally - we are worth connecting to.
The most glorious wonders of the universe traveled for eons to greet you. You only have to look.