Sky at night

Not a new observation, though I somehow hadn't thought it before, but one of the cool things about the lunar eclipse is that you get to see the full 28-day cycle/phases of the moon within a few hours.  I didn't manage to go out and find it until it had already been fully eclipsed and was just the smallest sliver of its lighted self, came back in the house when it was about 3/4 back to normal.

Memories of late summer, a younger self, sleeping under the stars, at times seeing the Milky Way (especially when I was little; we lived in navy housing out in the sticks, at the time, no city lights to block the sky) or at any rate, more stars than I see now.  Sometimes we'd sleep out on my friend's dad's boat, scaring the pants off of each other with stories of spaceships and aliens, but staying out.  Or in tents in backyards.  And later at camp, or group camping trips, groups of us sneaking off to sleep outside, inevitably getting caught by counselors, or park rangers (talking too loud...we also all managed to sleep on an anthill on that occasion.)  We tried sleeping on the lawn in front of the research station in Central America, but living in a cloud forest, we always got rained on.  Later, a boyfriend and I, both being poor at the time, spent our evenings walking out into the countryside to stargaze (in winter.  He always told me everything was "Scorpio," and taught me where Orion was.  So he was probably pulling my leg regarding Scorpio, but right about Orion.)  And even later, driving back to Swansea in the middle of the night with my aunt and uncle because of a broken down ferry from Ireland, and a last minute change that took us four hours north of where we'd thought we'd be, but man, what a sky, millions of stars.

There's a field nearby that makes me feel the same: awe of the beauty of the sky, and a certain deep loneliness at the distance and silence of it all, and joy at being alive to experience it.  Still love living here.