By Deb Fenwick
It’s February 2021, and the red planet is on the screen.
News headline: We’re looking at Perseverance. The world watches as Perseverance plummets and parachutes onto the surface of Mars.
Back in July 2020, we Earthlings launched our perseverance high into space with all the ambition, engineering precision, and imagination we could stuff into a carrier rocket and an SUV-sized robot. NASA’s landing of the rover seven months later was flawless—a picture-perfect touchdown of six wheels hitting dusty rocks on the red-orange Mars-scape.
According to reports, one aim of the mission is to search for ancient microbial life—biosignatures and astrobiology that will provide insights into early evolution and the universe’s future. The biggest questions about our ancient past and cosmic future, indeed the nature of life itself, are being explored up there by a Star Wars-like robotic traveler and its little mini-helicopter drone of a friend. And, in spite of our smartphones, we’re asking the same questions that every ancient sea navigator, stargazer, and shaman have pondered as they looked toward the heavens.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, perseverance has looked a little different over the past year. Here on our planet, there’s a virus that has indiscriminately spread its signature across every nation, with over half a million dead in the U.S. and only a nebulous prospect of herd immunity on the horizon. As quickly as scientists develop a vaccine, virulent new strains of the virus emerge. Perhaps we humans aren’t the only species that possesses great perseverance.
In the face of lockdowns and the loss of loved ones, how do we maintain equilibrium without a parachute, without plummeting?
Over the past year, I’ve noticed sounds that previously escaped my attention. They were always present, of course. When I listen now, however, I’m in awe of church bell chimes on the hour, the low rumble of freight trains carrying grain across the Midwest, and the symphony of early springtime songbirds with stories to tell. There’s a lot to hear in silence.
Sometimes, it’s so quiet that I hear my own heartbeat. And in these moments, I’m reminded of my heart’s perseverance. Its steady thump and rhythm are wonderfully outside of my control. Ultimately, I thank my lucky stars that I’m not in charge of keeping my heart beating. If it were my job, I’d become distracted when looking for my house keys. I’d forget to focus on keeping my old friend going in favor of scrolling through texts or answering an email.
I’m so grateful that there’s persistence, a perseverance at work that keeps hearts beating and the tides rolling in without any help from me. It gives me comfort that there’s an impulse, a force controlling the movement of planets around the sun. There’s a whisper that urges buds to blossom and embryos to grow. That gives me faith in things I can’t see or hear. It’s subtle, this quiet call to persevere. It’s an ancient echo, a biosignature that pulses electromagnetically from the past to the future. It came from our ancestors. It’s now in my heart and in yours. And it’s in every redwood branch stretching toward the sky and it’s on the ocean floor. There it is on the surface of Mars. Here it is, in the palms of our hands. It’s the ineffable answer to all the big questions. I choose to believe that it’s bigger than any virus. And that, above all else, helps me to persevere.
Deb Fenwick is a Chicago-born writer who currently lives in Oak Park, Illinois. After spending nearly thirty years working as an arts educator, school program specialist, youth advocate, and public school administrator, she now finds herself with ample time to read books by her heroes and write every story that was patiently waiting to be told. When she’s not traveling with her heartthrob of a husband or dreaming up wildly impractical adventures with her intrepid, college-age daughter, you’ll find her out in the garden getting muddy with two little pups.
