Interdependence Day
A microscopic cyanobacteria in the middle of the Pacific Ocean burbs out a few molecules of oxygen that I will later breathe. A billion years ago, a star erupts in a supernova, releasing iron into the cosmos that was forged in the star's heart, iron my red blood cells will use in their hemoglobin to extract that oxygen from the atmosphere.
The microbes in my gut help me process my food and extract its nutrients. The microbes in the soil nourish that food while it grows.
A chemist down at the water treatment plant measures, tests, filters, and ensures so that my drink from the tap doesn't give me cholera, or lead poisoning, or an intestinal parasite. A young man in a high-visibility vest and work boots wheels my garabage for the week off the curb and into the truck. A dispatcher is waiting on the other end of the line when I call in my emergency, a message that is then relayed onto EMS.
A powerlineman (or powerlinewoman) climbs a hot pole in the middle of summer to crimp and connect wires, passing along electricity to my lamp I use later that night, by which I read my children bedtime stories. A technician in white labcoat compounds the antibiotic solution that one of my children will take later in the year to cure an ear infection.
In an orchard somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, a mychorizal fungi will conjoin to the root of an apple tree, helping that tree access sustenance from the soil, and thus produce apples. A relative will use these applies in a pie we eat at a get-together that Fall.
While writing this, I will realize that I have forgotten to set off an introductory phrase with a comma in one of the sentences I wrote, a skill I picked up from a teacher in our Daily Oral Language sessions at the beginnng of English class. I will tie my shoes, thinking about a friend who first taught me how to loop the laces while we hung out on the bleachers at a basketball game.
Someone in China solders a wire in a phone I will use to text a friend, checking in to see how they are doing. An engineer in Germany designs the carseat that keeps my child safe riding 80 mph down the interstate. A multi-generational farmer in Kenya grows the life-affirming coffee I drink each morning.
A mother without legal status picks the strawberries I blend into a smoothy I drink after a hot day as I sit to relax on a welcoming deck chair.
A doctor who voted for the other guy treats a loved one's cancer. A road maintenance worker who voted for the other guy patches the potholes. A tollroad attendant who voted for the other guy wishes me a good day.
A woman who doesn't speak my language and whom I have never meet, wishes blessings upon me, and my kin, and my entire country as she prays her evening prayers.
And maybe, possibly, in a galaxy far, far away, on some unkown exoplanet of earthly character, an alien being considers other sentient things that might be out in the cosmos--other thinking and feeling creatures made of atoms--and sends us wellwishes across the light years.