Content warning: please note: this post contains mentions of self-harm.
Tomorrow’s my 53rd birthday. Here are some things I’m celebrating.
Last week my big kid asked me why I call him my “kid” or “child” in conversation and writing. He told me “I’m your son. You need to say I’m your son.” I said I would.
My son, my daughter and I all have uteruses and ovaries and we all get our periods. The son, older, has had his for a few years already. The daughter just started a couple months ago. She’s first each month, then my son, then me, trickling towards the end of my procreative usefulness, but still measurable by moon phases.
Things to celebrate.
I found a fragment of something I wrote and must have cut out of something longer. I often save scraps in some form on a desktop or a hard drive. Don’t even ask me what’s going on in the cloud, because I have no idea. This week I learned about a new initiative some German researchers created. It’s an open-source data management system that’s meant to be “higher” than the cloud. They call it The Stratosphere.
Here’s the text I found. I don’t know when I wrote it, maybe this time last year. I cut it because it seemed too emotional at the time. I thought I’d share it now. I don’t know who the “you” is that I’m referring to, but it’s probably you, dear reader:
You have to believe me when I say I both know precisely and have no idea what or why I’m doing. It’s odd to have a habit of mulling and meandering in mind and at certain times an idea arrives and feels so urgent and so essential that you go blazing into it and work as fast as you can before doubt creeps in or enthusiasm wanes. Usually after I’m done with whatever I set out to do I look it over and ask myself “what IS this?” And at first it makes no sense even though a day before it was the key to the secrets of the universe. After another day of looking at the stuff I made I begin to accept that the exhilaration of making is not the same as the contentment of experiencing the object after the fact. It’s two completely different experiences. I guess making art is a little like doing a science experiment, or falling in love. And remembering that what you’ve made is not complete but rather is something new to build with, that’s the key to accepting the work on its own terms. That is the harder job. Much like science, and very much like love.
I’m itching to escape, to curl myself up in one of John Powell’s PongSat taped-up ping-pong balls and get lifted up to the stratosphere. There’s GPS, so you will know where to find me.
A new network of humans around the world, reason enough to celebrate:
Armelle is mailing me the crashpads from a recent balloon launch at the Esrange Space Center in Kiruna, Sweden. Kai in Colorado is making me miniature glass balloon anchors and hourglasses that will be filled with steel ballast.
Carmelo wrote me back and answered my questions about the pictures of steel grit I had sent him. This grit is what the SF-based balloon expert Dan Bowen told me they use now for ballast in stratospheric balloons. So I bought five pounds of the grit online. And Carmelo’s the Sicilian engineer and Melville aficionado I met at Esrange when I was there in September. You can read more about that adventure here.
Carmelo’s favorite alloy is steel; his favorite element, iron. I sent him these pictures and asked him questions, trying to elicit some of the poetry of our earlier conversations at three in the morning as we waited for the balloon to launch or not launch, depending on the weather. Here is his response:
Dear Jenny, I do beg your pardon. I am replying to your questions:
“> what this steel grit is made of, why it is useful, how you would analyze it?”
This grit is made of common steel, construction steel if you prefer. What is essential is only its weight, no matter the mechanical properties, so I imagine they're made of the cheapest steel they found. While I was in base, in Kiruna, I didn't really trust this grit was made of steel, the lead seemed to me more reasonable, so I used a little magnet to sort out if it was really steel. And it was! You know lead is a nonmagnetic material.
“>and, if you are willing to describe again, how do you feel about this material?”
Well, I find steel the most important and precious metal (alloy, actually) in the world. The things you can make of steel are numberless. Gold, silver, platinum... don't seem to me as noble as steel. I don't remind if I told you that the first ring I gave my wife was made of steel. She didn't appreciate that much..but no patience! I won't change my mind about this subject:-)
I do hope I've replied to your questions, please ask again if you think I can help you.
I'd like very much to see the result of your job in Kiruna (at least, a part of it). Don't forget to call me if you visit Italy.
Kindest regards,
C.
When you drop ballast, your balloon goes higher.
A few days ago I got an email out of the blue (pun intended) from Dan Bowen, the balloon expert I mentioned above:
Hey Jenny, are you up? There's a TV station that's looking for balloon people to talk about the Chinese balloon today. You're actually up there on the list of people who know balloons these days, and I can't do it.
I was flattered he considered me, I like thinking that I am on a list of people who know balloons. I like thinking that a lonely giant schlepping balloon floated up over the Bering Strait, then Canada, and down to Montana like early humans may have done, on foot, thousands of years ago, or so one of the theories goes. Of course I also like that my bunker world and balloon world are merging into one news item for one week in February 2023.
U.S. fighter jets shot missiles to pop the spy balloon and it came down in bits in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of North Carolina. Now they’re trying to retrieve the shreds and the payload for analysis. This reminds me of the conversation I had with Nick Kohli who used to be part of the team that Google would send out all over the world to try to retrieve the pieces of their failed balloons. The Google retrieval people, most of whom had been in Special Ops or other military units, had to work with villagers and indigenous tribes in South American jungles to hack through the underbrush or rappel down sheer cliffs to pick up wrecked shreds of plastic.
Google’s balloon project, called Loon, closed after 9 years. The people who worked there still call themselves by the term of affection they did when on the job: “Loonies.” Now the company Raven Aerostar acquired Google’s most important patents and is using them for aerospace and defense projects.
This isn’t as celebratory as I had hoped. Returning to the now:
I’ve got a roll of of adhesive magnet 5 feet long and 2 feet wide and a bunch of ballast here in the studio. I’ve got my inks, I’ve got 16mm film, my music and myself.
Reason enough to celebrate.
On Sunday my 11 year old daughter Emma had a wedding party in the backyard of a friend’s house. A bunch of 11 and 12 year olds attended. She married her best friend. They both wore white dresses and held bouquets of white flowers. Actual parents were not invited. It was a double wedding, because the friends they had dubbed as parents got married too. In attendance were also 11 and 12 year olds who were designated grandparents, uncles and, for some reason, one decided to be a duck. It was a potluck. Cupcakes, fruit kebabs, juice.
A celebration.
Last week my son Oli threw his arms around me and announced he had gone five months without cutting himself. The scars are fading.
We agreed that’s a big cause for celebration.
So let’s celebrate.
Thanks for reading.