Emily Articulated: Ordinary miracle

By Emiy Erickson
Reader Columnist

“If you took a very long ruler and stretched it from here to the planet Pluto, one inch of that distance would be you. The rest of the distance would be other possible human beings that could have been, but never were. Each of us has won the lottery with a hundred thousand billion players. Being alive is the greatest stroke of luck we will ever experience.”

That’s from “The Ordinary Miracle of Existing,” by Alan Lightman in The Atlantic, which I was reading in the hard plastic chair of the laundromat. Humidity crawled across the window next to me, the hot breath of the washing machine obscuring its pane. 

Lightman was describing the impossible odds of being the sole survivor of a single conception event — of being one in 300,000 eggs a human female carries in the fertile period of her life, as well as the one in 300 million sperm in a single male ejaculation. Before that, he described the unfathomable reality that is being alive on a planet within a solar system on the outskirts of 100 billion stars called a galaxy, of which we are but one of many. 

He described the expanse: “Think of an ant in New York City contemplating a trip to San Francisco. Our houses, our roads, our cities are a speck in the cosmos, a dust mote, one grain of sand on a vast beach.”

A bead of sweat traced its way from my temple to my ear before disappearing into a dry strand of hair. A machine beeped across the room, and I looked up for the person whose clothes were ready. Farther away, a man with a faded Celtic knot tattoo fed a bill into the coin machine. It was the kind of tattoo that showed its age, fading into obscurity with each slowly blurring line. The clinking of the metal coins hitting the tray reverberated around the room.

I sat in the paradox of the moment, contemplating the magnitude of the universe and the impossible odds of my own existence while the mundane hummed around me. It felt like peeking behind the curtain of ordinary life and catching a glimpse of something deeper — a brief awareness of the extraordinary privilege of experiencing such profound insignificance — before the curtain drifted back into place.

Perhaps we only get glimpses like this because it would be too great to hold all of the time. We overcame unfathomable odds, and also needed to stand, feet planted on bathroom tiles, and brush our teeth while the Earth spins around us. Or stand in line. Or separate whites from colors.

Whole religions and philosophies have been devoted to this question, each offering its own answer to the improbable fact of our existence. Monotheistic traditions see intention where others see chance, believing we were deliberately created and entrusted with purpose. Other faiths understand us as inseparable from the Earth or the cosmos itself — drops in the ocean, leaves on a tree, expressions of a larger whole. Nihilists find freedom in our insignificance, while existentialists argue that if existence is improbable, then meaning is ours to create. Different answers to the same mystery, each an attempt to explain what it means to wake up as one improbable life among billions.

Folk musician John Craigie (who is playing at the Panida Theater this Friday, July 17) has a lyric in his song “Dissect the Bird.” He sings: “[If] the universe feels like it’s against you, just take a minute to realize, all it took to make you / Sparks had to catch, oceans had to freeze, billions of cells had to survive endless disease / People had to leave, hearts had to get broken. People had to die, just so your eyes could open. The universe is not against you; it went through a lot, just to give you a chance. It must’ve wanted you pretty bad. (No pressure though).”

This song, like Lightman’s essay, explicitly incites a shift in perspective, insisting we step outside our lives and consider the magnitude of our existence. Other nudges aren’t so obvious, but are there when you know what you’re looking for — the sunset that makes your chest ache, the loss of someone close, the joy of finding someone new, the sparks of a fire as they drift lazily to the stars. Our lives are ordinary and incomprehensibly insignificant. And also, complete miracles.

I folded the last shirt and placed it into my basket before wheeling it to the trunk of my car. Settling into my seat and switching on my blinker, I listened to the clicking beat as rhythmic as my own heart, and merged into the afternoon traffic.

Emily Erickson is a writer and business owner with an affinity for black coffee and playing in the mountains. Connect with her online at www.bigbluehat.studio.