Monday Night Friends Circle– a group of friends asked me to lead them in a writing circle for a few weeks: Sometimes we share what we’ve written between weeks. Last night we wrote during our circle: three segments of ten minutes each on three different topics:

1. Write for 10 minutes about everything you know and can say for certain about the Universe, God and the Solar System.

2. Write for 10 minutes everything you can say for sure is true about relations between human beings.

3. Write for 10 minutes everything you can say for sure is true about yourself.

The humans are as stunning and brilliant and as interesting as their writing. I believe their experiences are preparing them. They’re so close to life and ideas about life in their 20s. Their story is immediate; they have lived outside their first family for a few years. At 55 I’m reflective about a long story. I remember my 20s as a time when I was curious and I believed change and education could save me.

I still feel young inside but I no longer believe I need saving. There is nothing to save me from…I am changing. I am alive.

The universe is expanding.

My son’s girlfriend is an astrophysicist. She studies exoplanets. She spots them. Uses data points to create models of expected trajectories, system qualities. So far no one has found a planet like ours or a solar system like ours. All the masters candidates in her department have one burning-like-peat-moss question: Where are the aliens?

Her name is Maggie. I love her. I’ve known her for four days. We had coffee together, in the space between sleep and movement. We walked along the ocean. The conversation was inspiring. I love her. I expect I will know Maggie for a very long time. As a pre-teen, I thought about changing my name to Maggie. Often the new kid at school, I planned the story I would tell about who I was and what I’d done before I arrived. Maggie and Mar’ce seemed so close in sound. I was pretty sure I could get away with it. I wrote the name Maggie over and over on the inside flap of my spiral bound. M. a. g. g. i. e… I loved the feel of the pen dropping below the center line on each g and the swing back up. Right in the middle of the name.: down. up. down. up. I wonder if Maggie’s love of all things physics stems from the gs in her name.

Humans are wired for love or by love. Humans are a circuit or a circle of love.

In bible school when I was 8 we sang,

May the Circle Be unbroken,

by and by, Lord, by and by.

Here I am in my circuit of love, my circle. Sometimes I can feel the heart cycle through my organism, heart muscle expanding and expanding, like bigger and bigger breaths. I know fear, too. The great contraction: the muscle clench, the jaw set, the avoidant eyes. I’ve known my mother’s eyes of love in many contexts; when I needed her, when she was afraid for me, when she did not want to say good-bye.

I love a full expression of love. I notice love when it is vibrant and when it is dim.

The night sky is a good example. Say all the planets and stars are expressions of love. Say nighttime walks sparkle you with love, and on full moon nights, bathe you in love.

Imagine love expands the universe.

Say my love, your love, our love is creating a solar system right now.

What if Maggie discovers an exoplanet and names it after love? Will wars lessen? Will people hug each other more? Will we learn to share better?

Oh, life. I love you.