cosmolinguist | (no subject)

I read about this NatGeo documentary about Sally Ride last week and D and I watched the first half or so tonight (before I got too sleepy).

I remember being floored by a photo of Sally Ride in space, in the shuttle, that I saw in my social studies textbook in I wanna say third or fourth grade. American women could go to space. I think I was probably just about grown out of my desire to be an astronaut by this point (I'd seriously considered it until I decided my mom would worry too much about me so it wasn't a good idea...seeing how much she still worries about me, this seems very astute (the fact that I can't see did not occur to me as a dealbreaker until I was much older, by the way)) but I was fantastically interested in astronauts and the space shuttle (I had a toy version, complete with the truck to slot it on to for the drive across the country), the Voyagers still encountering planets at the time, and all that.

Reading about and especially watching the documentary now, I'm struck by how familiar parts of her story are. Never showed her emotions? Had parents who never modeled how to? (In a way that's referred to as "Norwegian"?!) This shit could literally be taken from my counseling sessions, heh.

This person as remote as the space she traveled to still feels as close as I was to that social studies textbook in elementary school.

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My 'icy' Scandinavian relatives... That all sounds so family-ar to me.

Yes I figured you'd understand.

From how her partner describes them, Sally's parents just didn't seem that interested in having her visit or anything which is obviously the opposite of mine. But also, listening to how they knew that Sally was dating this woman that she kept bringing home and they just didn't talk about it... I thought yeah if your daughter turned out to be a guy I could see you just not talking about that either...

I remember the story about Ops deciding how many tampons to send with Sally Ride, in case she got her period while in space.

And in recent years learning she was queer with a female life partner! That was exciting!

Her partner plays a big part in this documentary -- she comes off as so interesting and likeable.

I met Sally Ride when I was a PhD student. She was the keynote speaker at an annual symposium I helped a senior colleague to organise while I was at UCSD. :)

So much that we learned about Sally Ride after she was no longer here to answer the follow-up questions about it. But from teh way you've described it, it sounds like your parents and hers would have gotten along swimmingly, talking about everything except the things they most desperately wanted to talk about and get some support for.