Dirt is Made by Stars, And Is The Same Everywhere

When I was eleven, sitting wide-eyed in a dark theater, I was with my father. He was a welder, a cab driver, and not around a lot. But he had paid for some very expensive tickets for this film that had been advertised for months on TV, that was a swashbuckling Space Opera adventure that told the story of a hero with a magic sword the wizard who advised him and the princess that he rescued, going up against the evil dark lord and his minions. 

 I saw spaceships, planets, and heroes on an adventure that stretched across the stars. Good citizens of the Galaxy who sacrificed their lives in a rebellion against those who would attempt to tightly control everyone and everything in a fascist dictatorship under an emperor. 

 The universe opened up before me, vast and mysterious, with alien worlds begging to be explored. And in that moment, I knew I wanted to be out there—walking on distant planets, touching the dust of foreign landscapes, and discovering places no one had ever seen before.

Of course, life had other plans. I stayed firmly rooted on Earth, but I joined the United States Navy and I had my own adventures planetSide across two continents, and have visited almost two dozen countries with their variety of strange terrain and nearly alien cultures, and I've been on the other side of the planet as far as I could go without a rocket...but that dream never went away. 

Fast-forward 47 years, and while I may not be trekking across alien terrain, I am creating it. Every world I write feels like a step into the vastness I once imagined. And here’s the truth that still amazes me: the dirt out there—the red dust of Mars, the rocky plains of distant moons, the mountains seen through a Rover’s camera—it’s made of the same stuff as our own planet.

You see, planets are built from stardust, just like us. The elements forged in stars form everything: the mountains, the soil, even our bones. So when I write about strange new worlds, I know that beneath their exotic skies and unfamiliar landscapes, they’re connected to us in some cosmic way. There are millions of worlds out there, each with their own mountains, skies, rocks, and dust. And in some strange sense, I feel like I’ve touched them, even if only through imagination.

These days, I still carry that 11-year-old kid’s longing to explore, though now I know my adventures happen on the page. When I sit down to write my own Space Opera, I feel a bit like that kid again—full of wonder and the thrill of discovery. It’s not the same as stepping onto an alien surface, but in my stories, I can create worlds where every horizon, every grain of dirt, feels real. In writing, I’m finally the space explorer I dreamed of being all those years ago.

So here I am, nearly 59 years old, creating worlds, one story at a time, knowing that out there, on Mars or a hundred light-years away, the dust is still just dust, and yet it’s so much more. Because with a bit of imagination, that dust becomes the beginning of something grand, and maybe, just maybe, a way for all of us to feel a little closer to the stars.