Space Oddity

A Space Oddity

Millions of people listened to all the David Bowie songs they could today. And while there are quite a lot of them, my favorite has always been "Space Oddity", Bowie's song about an astronaut who suffers an accident and disappears into the void while up in space.

But there's a also great 1983 reprise of Space Oddity, "Major Tom" by Peter Schilling. This song adds  a neat twist to the story, changing it from the tale of an adventurer dying doing what he loves into something more. Schilling's song ends with that hint that Major Tom is still alive....the words "this is my home....I'm coming home".

In other words, he hasn't died, he has gone home. Whether that home is Heaven, Valhalla or something else, there's the sense that Major Tom's story hasn't ended. It's just entered a new phase. I think that's a belief that many of us would like to hold

Whatever the truth is about life after death, David Bowie is now a step ahead of us. He knows the reality behind the Undiscovered Country.

Free associating now

Driving home tonight, I ended up listening to a favorite audiobook by Spider Robinson. If you've never of Spider or read any of his books, do yourself a favor and check him out! My favorite collection of his work is "Callahan's Crosstime Saloon". In fact, it's one of my favorite books of all time.

While science fiction is sometimes dry or overly technical, Spider's stories are primarily about humanity. There are real extraterrestrials in his books, both good and bad. But there is also a minister who time travels by being imprisoned in a South American jail cell with his wife until she dies. And it is as sad and depressing as it sounds. But Spider also tells the story of the next day and the day after that...how people take up the next day of their life after tragedy or hard times befall them.


(Unfortunately, Spider knows has known more than his share of hard times. His wife of 35 years and co-author Jeanne  Robinson died of cancer in 2010. And then his daughter died of metastatic breast cancer two years ago.)

The Spider Robinson book I was listening to tonight is a novel called "Stardance". In it, a bitter, cynical dancer becomes part of a mission sent to contact aliens who have entered the solar system. It is a story with loss but also with hope for humans finding the next step in our evolution by finding our destiny out among the stars.

Somehow, it just seemed appropriate now that David Bowie has left us.