Stargazing

I think of the first conscious man, and wonder if he panicked at his first sunset over whether light and warmth were leaving him forever. Adam was cast from Eden at the moment of conception so this wouldn’t be so unbelievable. I doubt either got much rest that first night, making human history just a story of us getting collectively better night’s sleep.

We don’t have to worry about the sun rising anymore, or of beasts feasting on us in the desert, or of a great many other things. But there’s always something to keep you up at night. I remember watching cryptozoology documentaries on the History Channel and worrying I would be attacked by a Sasquatch in my sleep despite not living in the Pacific Northwest, and secondarily because Sasquatches probably don’t exist. But not all sleepless nights are bad. I remember stargazing in the Rocky Mountains and being overwhelmed by a certainty that everything was where it should be, so to even close my eyelids would disrupt this precious order of things.

The sky is so full of stars and it’s a shame that we aren’t constantly reminded of that. When I think of Heaven I think of lying down in a place like that and just watching things unfold, knowing everything is where it should be or else is getting there. Still, and this may be because of the light pollution, things can seem out of place, out of reach. But then I remember being on a boat caught in a storm once and feeling this bizarre sense of calm. Even there things were as they should be, I just had to bounce and sway to keep up with them.

I felt alive then and could see clearly how to be alive at all was a wonderful, unbelievable thing. Admittedly, I don’t always feel this. But I’ll be walking down the street or getting onto the bus and think, generally to myself, how unlikely all of this must be. In these moments I have some sense to start laughing, and pointing around announcing that the whole of the universe brought us to this moment—to a bagel shop, to a street lamp, to a thirty minute commute to work. It is almost like the climax of a book, except the thing that you were building up to is a crosswalk, and yet it’s more beautiful and unbelievable than anything you could have imagined.

It’s a philosophical question as to whether the glass is half-full or half-empty. Still I think of the stars and how I know the sky is full of them, when in reality they’re separated by many thousands of lightyears and even by thousands of years, as light can take a long time to reach us. Lying down on my back, however, those lightyears don’t seem so far, and the glass being filled at all is suddenly more beautiful and unbelievable than anything—even the bagel shops.

I wonder how many nights it took Adam to start enjoying stargazing.