Look, Mummy, There’s an Aeroplane up in the Sky

“Throughout his life, Albert Einstein would retain the intuition and the awe of a child. He never lost his sense of wonder at the magic of nature's phenomena-magnetic fields, gravity, inertia, acceleration, light beams-which grown-ups find so commonplace. He retained the ability to hold two thoughts in his mind simultaneously, to be puzzled when they conflicted, and to marvel when he could smell an underlying unity. "People like you and me never grow old," he wrote a friend later in life. "We never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.” ― Walter Isaacson

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On my walk back from the beach, I pass an unkempt but lush, green church garden. It’s splattered with hedgerow. Each time, I am greeted by the sight of a cloud of blackbirds fluttering in and out among the hedges. Their playful dance, bobbing up and down in a carefree, miniature murmuration, always catches my attention. The blackbirds carry a sense of being unencumbered, living in the moment without a worry in the world.

The first time I happened to see this heart-warming scene, it stirred something deep within me: a vivid childhood memory surfaced. I was transported back to when I was two or three years old, standing once again in that bubble of time.

I remembered being in my own hedge-lined back garden, witnessing a flock of blackbirds in flight for the very first time. I was filled with a sense of awe and wonder, marvelling at how these birds stayed up above the ground. I distinctly remember thinking, ‘How do they stay up by themselves?’

My young mind was just beginning to develop, and I was starting to question the world around me. I recall my questions, like looking up at the azure, blue sky, I found myself contemplating: Who put the sky there, and how did they do it? And even at that young age, I wondered, how did I come to be here, and be me?

This flash of memory from fifty years ago felt like a pure treat.

Children are naturally inquisitive, always asking the questions of Where, What, How, When, and Why: Why is the sky blue? Why does rain fall from the clouds? Where do babies come from? How do they get into tummies?

Yet I can’t help but continue to ask questions throughout my life, perhaps not as innocently as children do, with their early state of consciousness, but I still find life endlessly intriguing. Even now, when I look up at the moon and the planets in the evening sky, I’m filled with the same sense of wonder and awe.

Even last night, chatting with my boyfriend about how deeply I think about life, he still admits he doesn’t think about life as awe-inspiring as I do. I asked if he ever questions how the planets got to be here, or how the entire solar systems stay in place, as it does. He nonchalantly replied, “I don’t think about any of it, I just get on with my life.”

He and others may not think the way I do, but I can’t stop questioning the whys of life on Earth and outer space: How did we get here, and why does everything continue to work as it does?

I have an overwhelming need to understand what makes us humans tick and what makes us who we are. Do you still ponder over these questions as an adult, or do you simply accept that we are here, without needing any answers?

These memories led me to create the following poem:

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