The Sunday night blues sink in right after dinner. The weekend is officially over;
relaxation will be non-existent in about 12 hours. I sit here with my laptop and some file folders and my
calendar, shuffling each one around enough to make it seem like progress is
happening. But it’s not. I looked up at the tv and there were
stars all over the screen. Fox was
airing a show called, "Cosmos."
There are a few things in this world that will literally
take my breath away every single time.
I do not mean the rare, special, romantic, emotional, or extreme moments
– those are a different kind of breathtaking. I am talking about something that occurs fairly regularly,
that despite it’s normalcy, still takes your breath away. Every time. One of those things is looking up at a star-filled sky. I grew up in town that hosted brilliant
constellations every night.
My trips to the planetarium as an elementary school kid brought the
stars even closer to me. As soon
as Mr. Danner turned off the lights and put the stars on the ceiling, I was
mesmerized. (sidebar: just
thinking about that while I’m writing – i remember how the room smelled, what
his voice sounded like, how the plastic chairs felt when I leaned my head back
as far as it could go…) My eyes
couldn’t take it all in fast enough and I was swirling about the room, (which I
could have sworn was really moving) grabbing onto Orion’s belt while sliding
down the big dipper. As an
adult, I have found myself in the magazine section of Barnes and Noble tracing
the cover of Astronomy Magazine
without even knowing why. A
few years ago, I lived near a church that had an outdoor spiral staircase that
led to terrace on top of the building– there was one bench with a perfect view
of the sky. I sat there for hours some nights,
simply getting sucked in by the gravitation pull of outer space.
I am grateful for the way the stars in the sky is one place where
getting lost is actually how you get found.
Beautiful.goosebumps. woe
ReplyDelete