Perseverance: Biosignatures and Heartbeats

  • 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.

  • By Lynn Levy

    Daria stood with her nose up against the glass, peeking in at the door. She didn’t go in—she knew better. And when someone came out, she melted away, back into the shadows, back where she couldn’t be seen.

    But the tall blond man saw her anyway, and walked toward her. He was a giant, an enormous bulk of branches and limbs that looked like he shouldn’t be able to balance, let alone walk. She imagined him crashing over, like her string doll did when she pressed the button on the bottom. But instead, he folded himself down, quiet as a sheet, until he was squatting in front of her.

    “Are you Daria?” he asked.

    Daria furrowed her brow. The rule was, you don’t tell strangers your name. But another rule was that you don’t lie.

    “Yes,” she finally decided upon, because she liked his pale blue eyes, and the fact that they were down right across from hers, and she didn’t want him to get up yet.

    “What’s so interesting in there?” he asked, turning his head over his shoulder, back toward the door.

    “Don’t know. Can’t go in,” Daria said.

    The blue eyes flashed. “Ah,” he said. “So is it secrets you love, or puzzles?”

    Daria thought about it a moment and said, “They’re the same.” Because they were. They were both things to figure out.

    “Insightful,” the man said. Daria didn’t know the word, but understood that he agreed.

    He made a quick movement and she felt a brush of air beside her ear, and then he was holding a coin, not an ordinary quarter or dime, but large and nearly white.

    “Usually this is where I say, ‘Look what I found behind your ear,’ but it comes from farther than that.”

    Daria’s eyes locked on the thing. It nearly glowed, and she imagined she felt heat coming from it.

    “Do you want it?” he asked.

    There were rules about taking candy from strangers (don’t), and following strangers (don’t), and getting into cars with strangers (don’t). Daria understood the common thread of these rules, but chose just then to be precise. There were no rules about fat, glowing white coins, none at all.

    “Yes,” she said.

    He reached out his hand, an invitation for hers, and right then Daria dared. She lay her hand, palm open and up on top of his, and felt his fingers against the back of her hand. They were warm.  She didn’t know what she’d expected, but he seemed like he could be something . . . else.

    Gently, he pressed the coin into her hand, and closed her fingers around it. He patted her closed fist with his other hand.

    He poured his pale blue eyes into her dark brown ones a second more, then unfolded, standing up like the stop action movie she’d seen on TV of a tree growing.

    “Karl, you coming?” someone yelled from behind the door. He turned, neatly blocking her from view and said, in a much gruffer voice, “Can’t a man take a leak?”

    There was a grumble and the door shut again, the little bell tinkling in a way that was too pretty.

    Karl strode toward the door, and just as he went in, looked back over his shoulder at her. He nodded, just barely, and went inside.

    You cannot beat a bully, was one of the things Daria had worked out on her own. And basically, all grownups were bullies. You could only outsmart them—and so Daria knew how to hide things. Real things, like the coin, and unreal things, like what she was thinking.

    One of the rules was that she wasn’t supposed to spy on Uncle Brad’s friends. But this uncle would pass, like the others.

    She melted clean away, into her best hiding place, and didn’t open her hand until she got there. The coin was gone. But from her palm shone a clean white light that filled the space. What it was, was the beginning.

    Lynn Levy’s writing has been published in The Write Spot: Discoveries and The Write Spot: Possibilities, both available on Amazon in print ($15) and as an ereader ($2.99).

    Lynn lives in Northern California with her husband, an endless parade of wild birds, and one dour skunk who passes by nightly. She and the skunk have an understanding.

    Lynn has been an audio engineer, software developer, survived middle management, and is wildly enjoying her latest reinvention as a technical writer.

  •  By M.A. Dooley

    “Dad, why do people think the moon is made of cheese?”

    “Because of the holes, it looks like swiss cheese.”

    “Dad, what are the holes made of?”

    “They’re craters made by asteroids crashing on the surface.”

    “Dad, can an asteroid crash here?”

    “It’s possible, but not probable.”  

    “Dad, is a shooting star a dying sun?”

    “No, they are meteorites burning up in earth’s atmosphere.”

    “But they’re good luck, right dad?”  

    The Mars landing reminded me of days of infinite possibilities. I was born to an aerospace engineer who flew to Cape Canaveral for satellite launches. The morning of the Apollo 12 lift-off, our family huddled around a black and white picture box. My little brother was just happy in mom’s soft lap. I, the older one and already like my dad, asked innumerable questions before count down. Mom shushed me so dad could narrate the details of the rocket parts and stages. As soon as an opening allowed, I proceeded with my inquiry.

    “Dad, is there such thing as aliens?”

    “It’s possible, but not probable.”

    “Why not, dad?”

    “Because of all the ingredients required for life, especially water, which we can’t find on other planets.”

    “But dad, have we looked everywhere?”

    “We are trying.”

    “Dad, what about Mars?”

    “Nope, there’s no life-sustaining elements there.”

    “But dad, is it possible that there once was?”

    “It’s possible, but not probable.”

    “But it is possible, right dad?” 

    M.A. Dooley is a fourth generation Californian who spent her childhood in the Santa Cruz Mountains. She is an architect in partnership with her husband. They have three sons. Among a multitude of athletic interests, she loves to ski and dance. Her work has been published in Sunset, Trends, San Francisco Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Press Democrat,and in Poems of a Modern Day Architect published by ARCHHIVE BOOKS, 2020. 

  • California Winter

    By Patricia Morris

    (with thanks to Ted Kooser)

    The wind turns the pages of rain

    As drops splatter on the skylights,

        beating a rhythm punctuated by

        the cracks of unmoored oak limbs

         hitting the roof.

     

     The rain chain dances,

        brass acorns jingling,

        water swooshing through its cups.

     

     The creek rushes over rocks,

          gushes into the culvert and out again,

          making its overground / underground way to the river.

     

    The thirsty earth soaks it in,

       filters it down into empty aquifers.

    One chapter ending, another beginning.

     

    Freewrite inspired by the poem, A Rainy Morning, by Ted Kooser

     

    Patricia Morris misses the summer thunderstorms of her rural Midwestern upbringing, but enjoys observing and writing about the California rains from her home in Petaluma.

    After careers as diverse as trial lawyer and organization and leadership development consultant and coach, she is exploring life beyond the workaday world.

    Every Monday night she writes with friends at Marlene Cullen’s and Susan Bono’s Jumpstart Writing Workshops. Her writing has appeared in Rand McNally’s Vacation America, the Ultimate Road Atlas and The Write Spot:  Possibilities edited by Marlene Cullen. Available on Amazon, print $15 and ereader $2.99.

  • The Trees on Her Block

    By Camille Sherman

    Thick strands, split ends, hanging in zero gravity toward the sky

    A morning stretch, limbs painting fine details on the clouds

    Noble, astute, aged and ageless

    Naked and resolute, spindly in its brittle winter coat

    Immune from human error, impervious to neglect or over-watering

    Pledging a sacred vow of new life in the spring

    Thawing those that pass below

    Breathing new poems into poets,

    Fresh brush strokes into painters

    Holding our attention and springing our steps

    Until a season-long sunset

    When autumn leaves start to fall

    Camille Sherman is a professional opera singer from the Bay Area. She trained at The Boston Conservatory and the San Francisco Conservatory of music, and served as an Artist in Residence at Pensacola Opera and Portland Opera. She currently lives in Portland, where she continues to sing and develop artistic projects with local artists.

  • This Side of a Freeze

    By Deb Fenwick

    You have one last stop to make. The holidays are approaching, and you have one final card to mail. A quick stop at the post office, and you can tick the box and check that task right off the list just before dark hits at 4:30 on a December day.

    Parking strategies are key here, and when you find a second-tier one across the street, you grab it. You’ve got layers. Layers of fleece and GORE-TEX, even a new hat, to insulate you from temperatures that are just this side of a freeze. 

    You cross Lake Street when you first see him. He’s just a little older than your daughter. He’s standing outside the main entrance near the flagpole as you approach the mailbox box with your stamped envelope—with your contents safely sealed inside.

    You see him approaching. He’s tall, and he looks like he could be one of your daughter’s friends. But, no, on second thought, no. They’re all off at college in dorm rooms, counting down for winter break. He’s shifting his gaze back and forth but walking directly toward you on the snowy sidewalk. Although young, you note that he doesn’t have the same posture you recognize in your daughter’s friends. All the times she brought them home for parties and fire pits. Even in their teens, her friends stood tall.They made eye contact and small talk.They perfected handshakes and polite niceties as they moved through rooms with all the confidence that a promise of a bright future bestows. 

    The wind from the North makes the flag dance with a violent whip. When he’s close enough to speak, you notice that his hand shakes as he says, “Excuse me.” He says it twice. He asks if you have any food. Then he apologizes.

    Caught off-guard at his youth and the request for food—not money, food. You look down at your envelope holding a card that is wishing a friend who lives two cities away glad tidings. You feel utterly unprepared for this moment. Food? you rhetorically ask him. Like it’s the first time you’ve ever heard the word. Now it’s your turn to apologize. Your cashless approach to life means your debit card is woefully underwhelming in this situation. You can’t even buy your way out of the discomfort you feel by offering him money for food. 

    When you can’t look him in the eye any longer, you shift your attention back to his hands. No gloves of fleece or GORE-TEX. He has hands red from the cold with long fingers that shake. These hands were once as tiny as your child’s sweet baby hands. You imagine his childhood fingers learning to tie shoes, practicing the writing of letters and numbers. His hands must have been held by the hand of a parent, a grandparent, some adult that loved him.

    Love. It echoes in your head and sounds hollow in the frosty air. You remember the spare set of gloves that you have in the car. You ask him to wait there while you dash across the street and rummage through the vehicle for the gloves and granola bars or any spare food you carelessly tossed aside in favor of better options.

    When you return, you give him the gloves and a smashed Nutrigrain bar. You apologize again and forget to mail the card as the winter wind continues its assault on the flag overhead.

    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.

  • Rinse Cycle

    By Brenda Bellinger

    Remember when we used to rely on weather forecasts that were broadcast with our nightly news? We’d get a good-enough sense of when to expect rain from the fuzzy satellite image.

    Many years ago, I used to ride the bus to work. At one of the stops along the way, a cheerful woman named Marilyn would board. She had Down Syndrome and would always greet everyone before settling herself into a seat toward the front. Occasionally, she would bring her umbrella. If Marilyn was carrying her umbrella on a bright sunny day, you could be assured it would rain, even if it hadn’t been predicted by the weatherman the night before.

    Who could have imagined that one day we’d have phones that would tell us precisely when rainfall would begin and end based on our location? Yes, it’s convenient and often very helpful but I miss the occasional surprise of being caught in unexpected weather.

    The rain that fell on Christmas Day was a welcome reminder that this is the season. (Or at least it’s supposed to be.) Listening to the soothing rhythm of raindrops falling outside my window brought some reassurance that things will be okay. New growth is stirring that will erase wildfire scars and winter gardens are being nourished. I love the way rain freshens the air and renews our spirits. It was fun to see a group of birds splashing in a newly formed puddle, not a care in the world. Hopefully, a period of sustained rainfall will follow soon and bring some relief from drought conditions.

    One of the things I enjoy most about rain is the quiet that it brings; the way the heaviness in the air settles over us. In Ireland, a heavy mist or light rain is often called “lovely soft weather” – a perfect description.

    I’m looking forward to more moody gray clouds and feeling cocooned inside during a downpour.

    For Brenda Bellinger, a rainy day is a welcome invitation to sit down and write. Her work has appeared in Small Farmer’s Journal, Mom Egg Review, Persimmon Tree, THEMA, the California Writers Club Literary Review, and in various anthologies. 

    Her first novel, Taking Root, a coming-of-age story of betrayal and courage, is available through most local bookstores and on Amazon. Brenda blogs at brendabellinger.com

    Note from Marlene: Brenda’s Blog is a collection of thoughtful and entertaining reflections on what matters.

  • Finding Peace

    By DS Briggs

    When in Switzerland I wandered into a large ornate cathedral. The choir was singing. The voices soared with the organist’s notes. I didn’t understand the language but sitting in the back pew I felt entranced and relaxed. 

    I live with a lot of silence within my home. I don’t usually have the radio, tv or music as background. I don’t know why. Habit? Or just a need to keep calm.

    I have experienced calmness in walking outdoors.  I was on the dog path, walking Boo. I heard a splash in the creek. I saw a pair of ducks swimming, dipping and eating with their bottoms-up.  I took time to watch how the sunlight dappled the creek and how the brilliant red-leafed tree stood out from the myriad of greens and browns. I just stood, leash in hand, and looked. I enjoyed the calm while I watched the ripples of circles the ducks made. It was a great moment to just be in the now.

    Other examples of this quiet-calm have been in walking with large, huge trees. I first noticed my heart quieting and healing when I camped in Sequoia National Park. Closer to home I found time in Armstrong Redwoods provided similar feelings to Sequoia until our most recent wildfire destroyed many of the trees. 

    I find more calming and quiet healing in the mountains than at the ocean. Although the waves moving in and out are mesmerizing, I don’t experience the same calming quiet that mountains provide. 

    Sheltering in place because of Covid, I could not go to the mountains. My experiences of quiet-calm came, however, when I would sit outside in the early morning before leaf blowers or phone calls. I just watched the birds flit . . . while sipping coffee from a warm mug in my bathrobe. Bliss.

    DS Briggs writes and resides in a small cluttered kingdom, with a gigantic dog. She discovered joy in writing while in elementary school. A brief stint as a newspaper reporter while in high school, DS thought journalism would be her college major. However, her writing career stalled in college when she realized she hated analyzing comma placement and switched to social science. DS became an elementary school teacher and later specialized in teaching independent travel skills and braille to students with visual impairments. Retired now, DS has returned to her love of writing thru Marlene Cullen’s Jumpstart Writing Workshops. 

  • Flood By Karen Ely

    A riddle is a bridge.

    A bridge to the truth,

    arching over the angry, churning river

    that is our nation’s canker.

     

    The howling denials

    humiliating trials

    of fact versus fiction

    0ur country’s affliction.

     

    And the riddle is this:

    What lies on the other side?

     

    A people of unity,

    Indivisible

    or a new status quo

    leaving gospel invisible

    As we strive

    To thrive

    Keep hope alive

    Compromise.

     

    Calm the beast and keep the peace.

    Cross over that muddy sludge

    On a one lane bridge

    Feet dry

    Expectations high.

     

    Looking for the promised land,

    The pot of gold,

    The rainbow’s end.

     

    Yet the river remains.

    Always raging

    Turning the soil

    Trumpers loyal

    Ready to spill over the banks

    and flood the fields

    of honest, hard-won crops.

    The hatred never really stops.

    Perhaps we need a dam.

    Karen Ely was born and raised in Petaluma, California. Upon graduating from UC Davis, she worked in San Francisco and New York City in corporate finance. After a 30-year career as a mom and “professional” volunteer in Scottsdale, AZ, Karen returned to her beloved hometown in Sonoma County.

    She delights in difficult crossword puzzles, the Santa Rosa Symphony, and traveling with  her husband (of 35 years) James. Karen has been published in The Write Spot to Jumpstart Your Writing: Discoveries, The Write Spot: Reflections, The Write Spot: Possibilities, and The Write Spot: Writing as a Path to Healing (all available on Amazon).