Once (RadioLab)

Once upon a time, according to Plato via Aristophanes,

Humans were born in pairs, attached, entwined

forming an intimate ball

Women + Men

Men + Men

Men + Women

Women + Women

Paired for life

Once,

We had 8 limbs and 2 faces

4 limbs on top

4 on bottom

We didn’t have to walk upright, but rolled

We had symmetry

We had strength

The strength led to courage

The courage led to pride

The pride led to arrogance

We decided we were greater than the gods

In a decidedly human act of bravado and stupidity we rolled up towards heaven to overthrow them

Zeus, wielding thunderbolts, struck everyone in two

Couples were now detached, separate

Alone and lost, losing the will to live

The Gods saw they needed to remedy this sad state of affairs so a few repairs were made:

Heads were rotated to face permanently forward

Skin was knotted at the belly button

Most importantly,

We were left with a longing, a memory of the other half of our selves

Today we call that concept of a person our soul mate

To this day we roam the world

Desperately seeking symmetry,

Eternally longing for our other half

There are 7 billion people alive on Earth today all still sensing they are missing someone

There have been over 100 billion people, ever

                the odds are not in our favor

Once,

On the way to Greys River for Volcanology we stopped to pick Ken up

He was standing on the side of the road holding a sign that said “Quaternary”

He was prepared to hitchhike home too, the reverse side read “Holocene”

Once,

we cut words out of an old geology textbook

(and)

pasted them over each other's hearts

then kissed;

each trying to embody the word the other wore

subduction

coeval

fault

I remember most the love; 

simple and unassuming

Your lips tasted like figs

Your kisses reminded me of the first cherries in spring

Loving you like Icarus too close to the sun.

My heart tangled in geology and ancient mythology.

Tender, like sunbathing in the Rockies in May

Once,

I loved the wrong man for years, convincing myself he was an engineer masquerading as an artist---

that he saw me as a poet masquerading as a scientist 

One of the first things he said was how worn out the record was

I loved it because of its worn out sound; well played, well loved

Turns out that records are still better than

cds

 tapes

mp3s

And every time we listened to

The Beatles

I was reminded that

Once, 

in a uniquely human act

full of hope and hubris

we sent a golden record shooting through space

a cultural Noah’s Ark,

a living myth with a billion year shelf life

It had language, music, poetry, a kiss, humpback whales singing and the recorded brain waves of Ann Druyan

Ann and Carl Sagan had discussed the possibility that in a thousand million years some future life form would be able to take the recording of brain waves and REM and reconstitute it into thoughts

Initially unbeknownst to them, Ann and Carl had fallen in love contemplating the vastness of space,

discussing how to encapsulate humanity and introduce us to the cosmos

One night, during a trans-continental phone call, they realized they were soul mates

The realization of this love came as a flash insight

A scientific discovery of the heart

They had never even kissed

Ann's brain waves were recorded the next day and two days after their record was launched into space they were married

They were together until Carl died 15 years later

[A thousand million years is a long time, who knows what is possible in a thousand million years]

Once

upon a time

there was nothing

nothing became something

It was the Pre-Cambrian.

thousands of millions of years passed

oxygen led to algae

single cells became multi-celled

gradually life exploded

It was the Cambrian .

millions of years passed

existence became larger than life,

extinction loomed on the horizon

It was the Cretaceous.

millions of years passed

apes appeared in the fossil record

It was the Cenozoic.

time passed

Humans arrived in the fossil record.

Humans created gods.

It is the Holocene.

Once,

during a video chat, as you leaned forward to find a translation

I began counting the freckles on your forehead

That night I dreamed I counted all the freckles on your body

It took me a lifetime

                like counting sheep

                a dream within a dream

I awoke missing you

According to Plato, when we find the other half of our soul we recognize it instantly

There is an unspoken understanding

We are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy

These lucky people spend their whole lives together

But if you asked, they could not quantify what they desire of each other

After Carl’s death Ann said “The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again.” 

I want to love like that.

I want to love you like that.

For Keeps.