Back to the Stars: Why I'm Leaving for 100 Days

And why I suddenly got space-y before my solo writing pilgrimage across the US. Plus, a special guest appearance by 10-year-old Katie (she's mean).

Jun 12, 2025

This post is part of my Feral Field Notes series in which I’m documenting what I discover during my 100 day journey across the US and (mostly) in real time, unless a bear gets me.

1×

0:00

-15:00

While preparing for my upcoming writing pilgrimage à la road trip, I unexpectedly chose a theme for my car: space. As in, outer space. I bought a night sky blanket, a crescent moon pillow, and little star lights to hang in the back.

At first, this confused me. I’d spent over a year planning for this trip, collecting endless notes and ideas about where I could go, what I would write, and what it might look like to “follow in the footsteps” of the writers and other explorers who came before me (specifically, Natalie Goldberg, but more on her in a future post).

So, why was I suddenly decorating my car?

The answer came in a rush of memories that helped me realize how my original “writing pilgrimage” idea had evolved since I first came up with it because of all that has happened since. It’s become an expanded journey about going back to the start—by way of the stars—after life dealt one unexpected hand after another.

Back to The Start

When I was a kid, I fell asleep under glowing plastic stars stuck to the ceiling of my bedroom. I daydreamed and night-dreamed about what it might be like to travel among them, zooming around asteroid belts and weaving through the rings of Saturn. I’d teeter on the edge of awe and fear as my developing brain imagined what infinity felt like while drifting asleep to a song of summer crickets and distant trains through my open window.

I was an impatient kid; I wanted to stretch out my arms and fly through space now. Once, without consulting a grown-up first, I tried to bring the cosmos closer by printing stars and planets I found on the internet (a shiny new thing at the time). I got in trouble though—turns out, printing outer space requires a lot of ink, which was expensive, apparently. “Can I still keep them?” is all I remember asking after the admonishment.

These were the days I’d sprawl out on the grass at night to stargaze whenever I could, along with re-watching Bruce Willis save the world in Armageddon on VHS. This was around the time I decided I’d become an astronaut—practically a rite of passage for most kids at some point. I wrote a letter to NASA to let them know and asked for their advice on how to make my dream come true.

They wrote back!

Sure, it was a form letter that they sent to all starry-eyed kids like me, but in that manila envelope, they included a large color photograph of that year’s astronauts, signed by all of them. Whether or not they were real signatures, I didn’t know or care. What was real to me was how there were glossy astronauts now in my hands—women astronauts, too! I was ecstatic. I taped my heroes to my beige bedroom wall by my bed and next to the expensive galaxies and nebulae that I’d framed and hung (and yes, got to keep).

NASA had also advised me in the letter to study hard if I wanted to be an astronaut, especially in math and science, so I did. I even skipped ahead a level at the beginning of 6th grade and joined Math Club, bumping its membership up to two. We met before school started while it was still dark out, doing extra math problems for fun (yearbook photo evidence is available upon request).

Before I’d secured my popularity status in 6th grade with that choice, I’d spent a week of summer vacation at Space Camp in Florida—a thinly-veiled divorce gift for my older sister and I. At a red light near camp—and after two full days of driving from Michigan without air conditioning—I’d rolled down a window and stuck out my head in the way only a kid raised in the 90s could and screamed to nobody and everybody, “DO YOU LOVE SPACE?” I remember how the wind whipped my sun-bleached blonde hair into my eyes and my mom screaming at me to get my ass back in the van as she made a U-turn.

Halfway through that week, we’d all waited for hours at a viewing area in the hot sun to watch a shuttle launch—not a common occurrence for Space Camp, apparently. We were lucky, we were told. But bad weather delayed the mission, and they weren’t sure we’d still be there by the time conditions were good enough to try again.

I was crushed. We’d been told that the first-ever woman space commander, Eileen Collins, would be piloting that flight, and I don’t think I’d ever looked forward to something more in my life (if we exclude the neighborhood ice cream truck visits, obviously).

The next day was the last full day of camp where the main event was a space flight simulation that everything before it had been leading up to. We’d already studied the instructions in a thick binder and voted for who would fill what role for each member of the flight team.

I was thrilled when I was elected as the flight commander. Just like Eileen! But when the moment came and we were in front of our computers with headsets on, I was so excited that I missed a step at a crucial moment: I somehow left the shuttle doors open as we went through the atmosphere.

Woops.

Thankfully, a few taps of my keyboard later, and we were back on track.

Later that night while we were all asleep, we were suddenly woken up by a camp counselor: Get up! The launch was rescheduled. We’re going up to the roof, now!

Bleary-eyed in my bunk bed, I remember how icy cold the room was, the feeling of the starchy, bleach-smelling sheets against my skin, and the bright fluorescent lights. But as kids started moving past me in their pajamas, it finally hit me—this was really happening, and I’d soon be watching a shuttle launch into space! I imagined Eileen strapped into her seat at that very moment, helmet on, heart racing—just minutes away from becoming the first woman to pilot a space shuttle.

I couldn’t believe I was going to see it with my own eyes.

I ran barefoot up the stairs in a grey 101 Dalmatians T-shirt that went past my knees. A wave of warm Florida air hit me as I stepped out onto the roof where kids and teens with tousled hair mingled with camp staff trying to babysit us all in the dark.

My memory bleeds out all other details after this, like my mind only had room enough left for the launch. It’s a memory so seared into my synapses that it’s like watching a movie clip and reliving it just as vividly each time I conjure it up.

Everything dropped away except for the sound of the countdown followed by an inky black night sky that suddenly, miraculously turned into a sunrise. In awe, I watched as it moved impossibly heavenward, so slowly at first that it didn’t seem possible.

A few months later, I’d write a poem about the experience for a school assignment. So let me step aside so 10-year-old Katie can have a moment—she’s the version of myself I’m most interested in being reacquainted with again, after all.

Here’s the original copy from 1999:

Back to The Stars

Right. So, let’s circle back?

What does this all have to do again with my upcoming trip?

And what do I really mean by “back to the start” and “stars” and could I please just get on with it?

I wonder if it’s not just as simple as this: I’d really like to get back to that wonder-filled, star-oriented, dreamer version of myself after a particularly heavy year and a half of much struggle and uncertainty, where I often lost my way (and self) at times.

I became someone who gradually stopped looking up, or who didn’t feel much when she did. Who just wanted to get back to the stardust part of the story. Who sensed a black hole nearby and thought, just take me already, would you.

But here are some truths that I keep coming back to: whenever I’ve been lost, I’ve been able to turn to writing and reading and connection to find my way back, or be OK with being lost for a while, or simply try and make sense of a senseless world—both inner and outer ones.

I also used to look to the horizon for that sense of awe and connection, from those early days of falling asleep to what those plastic stars promised, all the way to the last time I really, truly stargazed at Joshua Tree National Park, just weeks before we uprooted our lives in 2023 (where I counted exactly 100 shooting stars before stopping, and before saying goodbye to my favorite park and life as I knew it).

What came next would take more of a toll on me than I’d expected, and I gradually withdrew from the world over the next year and a half. Though we ultimately landed once again in the town we thought we’d left forever just a year later, I’ve found my attempts at re-entry these past few months have gone about as gracefully as when I left those shuttle doors open while passing through a simulated atmosphere at Space Camp.

But I guess I somehow made it through OK? A bit shaken up, burnt, and kind of embarrassed, but I think I made it to the other side, mostly in one piece. In fact, the past month or two have been so nice that it’s made it hard to leave, as much as I’ve been looking forward to it, and for so long.

But leave I must. Because though I didn’t go on to work for NASA (much to everyone’s relief), I did go on to become my own version of an explorer—which was really my ultimate dream in the end—by choosing a writer’s path, and a nomadic one, at that.

In the years following my Space Camp adventure, everything changed—from shifting homes again and changing schools to facing the end of life as I’d known it at that time. And it would be words I’d turn to for solace; it’d be words that ultimately saved me—from books I’d reread dozens of times alone in a bathroom stall during lunch at school, all the way to countless journals I’d fill with the things I didn’t think I could say or be out in the real world.

The page became a place I could always turn to, a space where I could explore whatever I wanted and safely land when needed.

Over the years of exploring my inner worlds in this way, I discovered that it felt a lot like the way I used to feel about the ever-expanding edges of the universe—the promise of endless discovery, endless possibility, endless aliveness.

But like I said, it’s been a while since I’ve felt that way. And maybe I’m naive to think this trip will reconnect me to these lost parts of myself, but maybe there’s also still enough of space commander Katie left within me to tilt my chin skyward again.

In fact, she’d probably be annoyed with me right now, wondering why I wasn’t already on Pluto and preparing to exit our solar system. I can imagine how I’d try to explain that conditions just haven’t been good enough to launch, and she’d make those periscope eyes and shake her head (she was kind of judgey), say something cutting like, “You sound like a grown up telling me about printers again,” and proceed to recount how she once launched with less than ideal conditions but made it (I wouldn’t dream of pointing out the plethora of flaws in her story and how none of it was real because she’d just explain—with an eye roll—that it was real, to her, and that’s what mattered).

Tomorrow, I’ll be heading to Joshua Tree for some much-needed preparation time—my own “launch pad” for this trip, if you will—so I can gather myself before heading out because things have been nonstop and overwhelming lately. I just don’t feel ready to leave directly from where I’ve been staying these past four months in Redlands—it’s been an intense time, and maybe I’ll share more soon about it along the way—but I feel like I just need a little space before I hit the road.

(Yeah, yeah, the starry language is going to get annoying. Oh well. I love it. Plus, Space Camp Katie would approve).

March 2019 at Joshua Tree with the sole surviving souvenir from Space Camp

As a treat for making it this far in a world where our attention prefers sound bites over songs, I’ll leave you with a rather feral short story I wrote either just before or after Space Camp. It wraps things up nicely and also sets the tone for what is likely to (metaphorically) occur on my upcoming journey.

(Also, you may notice a difference in uh… formatting. Unlike the poetry assignment, this all-caps adventure was typed at home for the pure fun of it).

To finding out more and more facts about the universe,

Katie

PS: Joshua Tree has since happened (here’s a note I posted about it), and I’m on the road. So far, I’ve rarely have service, tucked away in the Sierras as I’ve been. But I’ll catch up and post when I can. Stay tuned, and thanks for following along!

PPS: Yes, I realize I didn’t finish my Camino photo journal before starting this one. Oh well. I’ll resume it when I can.

Presence & Pilgrimage by Katie Allen

Discussion about this post