Aug
13
16 steps: Chasing the pleides
By
Step outside your city home to see if you can catch a falling star
- Notice that insufferable light obliterates all stars, and grab your keys and purse, pull the cord to open the garage door by hand (quietly, quietly) and back your car out of the driveway with the lights off. Never mind that the clock says 12:08. AM.
- Drive east of the city, and east, and east, until the ink-spill sky becomes freckled, and the half-full moon illuminates the fields
- Pull off in Watkins, take a county road north until it dead-ends, set up your tripod. Wonder how far east you’d drive before the full sky–not this burlesque show–stripped itself bare before your eyes
- Stand in the cooling wind and listen to the creatures sing in the tall grass that lines the hardpack
- Take long, long exposures on your new Diana F+ camera, hoping to catch a sky streak
- Feel utterly alone, and therefore utterly clear about who you are
- Scare yourself a little thinking about the creatures in the tall grass. Creatures. CREATURES. Jump into your car. Lock the doors. Drive back to the highway and then east again. The night–the meteor shower–is still young.
- Pull off in Bennett, the farm town, and drive south past the Dead End sign, park in the turn around next to oversized mailboxes, open the sunroof and kill the lights
- Remember all those times as a child that you wished upon a shooting star as you, all grown up, wish on one, then another, and another, until you run out of wishes … except for wishing for another shooting star
- Delight at each and every streak, each surprise appearance. Clap your hands like a child and say more, more!
- Yawn. Rub mascara off your eyes.
- Worry that your lover and child will find you gone from the house at 2 am, so turn home, rumbling across the hardpack to the highway.
- Drive west, toward the illuminated sky, with the sunroof open and heater blowing on your feet. Crank Pink Floyd and push the pedal, remembering all those nights in high school spent racing south on pitch black country roads, windows down and music blaring, running away from your teenage heartache at 120 miles per hour, how you’d stop in the darkness and scream at the blazing stars above
- Notice how fast 75 feels at age 40, at 230 am, 38 miles from home
- As you pull into your driveway, look up at the light-polluted sky and realize your daughter has likely never seen a shooting star, and regret not waking her to take her on your adventure
Beautiful list. I sort of felt like I was right there with you.
Danielle´s last blog ..Julie and Julia and Seth and Me
Thank you, Danielle!
Great account of watching the Pleides! Also, I love your quotes.
Jana´s last blog ..Ten ways I am killing the environment
Thank you Jana! I only wish I would have started off earlier so I could have gotten even farther away from the city.
16. Or be lucky enough to live in the country, spread out a sheet under the stars, and watch those shooting stars.
17. And, glad you made the effort.
Meryl´s last blog ..Personalized Decadence
When I was sitting way out there, I thought for about 3 minutes about moving to the country and how lucky people who don’t live in such a polluted environment are. Thanks for your comment!