Today marks the 50th anniversary of human spaceflight, which is beyond amazing. Also amazing is this photo of a dying star, entitled Butterfly Nebula, originally taken by NASA. 

Today's celebration of such an extraordinary achievement moved me to share this quote I recently found in my latest read, Interpreter of Maladies, the Pulitzer Prize winning collection of short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri. Taken from the last paragraph of the final story in her collection entitled, The Third and Final Continent, this quote made an extraordianry impression on me. 

"While the astronauts, heroes forever, spent mere hours on the moon, I have remained in this new world for nearly thiry years. I know that my achievement is quite ordinary. I am not the first man to seek his fortune from home, and I certainly am not the last. Still there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination." 

What a life I have- I must say thank you for my extraordinary ordinary life.