StarGazer
We’re both under the same stars, but not in the same sky.
Prologue
I love the night sky. I use the word love a lot. English is a poor language for the heart. I love chocolate cake, but I dream of the night sky. I write about the night sky. I draw the night sky.
One of my recurring fantasies throughout my life is to levitate off the surface of the earth and shoot into the cosmos, never returning home — just constantly finding new and exciting worlds to explore.
Like I said, it's a fantasy.
It isn't romantic, but Dennis Taylor’s We Are Legion scratches that itch for me — a mild-mannered programmer turned sentient space probe, endlessly exploring the stars. I love the wit and cleverness of it, but me? I’d just hover out there, crying and whispering, “They should have sent a poet.”
It's a Big Deal
So yeah, when I say I love the night sky, I mean it in the marrow. It’s not a passing hobby — it’s worship.
That means when the weather app says TONIGHT’S THE ONLY NIGHT TO SEE (insert astronomical phenomenon here), I get giddy.
October 21, 2025, was allegedly a banger:
* Orionid Meteor Shower peak
* Closest passing of Comet Lemon 06 for a thousand years
I talked about it all week. My grand plan was a 3-hour drive into West Texas to camp out at the canyons — the nearest true blackout sky. Big Bend or Cloudcroft, NM would be even better, but those are five hours away.
My wife, always kind but comfort-loving, just said, “Cool.”
And I knew she meant: Cool for you.
The cold, the dark, the stillness — none of that thrills her.
It's the beauty for me—like a painting that just hangs there. It brings to you what you bring to it. And I bring a lot. I bring joy, and exploration, memory, sadness, meditation. Often tears.
She brings coffee and Instagram; I bring silence and surrender. We’re both under the same stars, but not in the same sky.
On The Road
When the day finally wound down, it was near midnight.
Too late for the canyon trip, but too early to let go of the dream.
So I threw a wad of sleeping bags in Camper Van Beethoven and said,
“Let’s go to the lake!”
Moonpoint Reservoir isn’t glamorous, but the western shore is nothing but pasture — zero human light.
Forty minutes away: a private portal to infinity.
She asked if we’d be safe (we would).
She asked if I’d stay all night (I would).
So she came along, God bless her — even knowing what that meant: cold, quiet, stars doing their endless nothing.
Arrival
As we rolled off the farm road toward the low bridge I love, the darkness thickened until it felt painted — sumi ink over silk.
When the tires hit gravel, I smiled. I love that sound.
My headlights swept the brush — no fishermen, no lights, no one.
Perfect.
I parked Van facing outward for an easy getaway — a little ritual of imagined danger that makes her feel safer and me feel prepared.
Stepping out, the beauty of the sky reaches down and embraces me like an old parent.
Welcome home, son. Where have you been?
My eyes water. What a difference a few miles make.
This is the sky of my ancestors.
The one Isaiah and David saw when they wrote of heaven and Jehovah. Not the faded digital dome we’ve grown used to, but the raw, breathing cosmos.
Behind me, a voice:
“I can see the sky from here!”
Which is her shorthand for, I’m not going out there to get eaten by coyotes.
Fair enough.
Throwing open the back doors, I flick on the little red lights that protect our night vision and start throwing sleeping bags on to the ground behind the vehicle.
One flat, one mummy, one foam pillow. She claims the van, so I get the mummy bag! It's rated to zero, and I feel like the king of frost!
As a precautionary measure, I take our nine-million kelvin flashlight and do a sweep of the surrounding woods and walk the perimeter to establish with the local wildlife that I know they're there. Stay back little forest dwellers! I don't want any skunks nibbling my ears.
Climbing into my bag, I lay back and immediately know I have made the best decision of the week. It is simply stunning.
I don't need the stars to have names; they make their own stories in realtime. Tonight's is a story of finding peace in a troubled world. A troubled mind.
Lemon 06 is a bust — hiding behind the chest of Ursa Major.
No matter.
It’s always the journey that redeems the disappointment.
The Padmé-dress sunset, the walk, the anticipation — all perfect.
The Orionids are shy tonight too — not a single meteor in two hours.
But I’m not cheated. The stillness is its own gift.
I talk to the stars, or rather, their Maker.
I thank Him for the beauty, the function, the mercy that endures despite us.
I apologize for my failures.
I thank Him for what I have.
And I ask, simply, to feel safe — here, wrapped on the lake’s edge like a burrito of faith on the edge of oblivion.
It’s the kind of peace that would make a fine final moment.
In my reverie I hear my wife laugh at something on social media and I say, 'Your'e missing out. This show is worth the place here on the ground.' But she doesn't get it. It isn't her thing.
I have to be okay with that. You can't feed a meal to someone who isn't hungry.
It is cold. I can feel it on my face, it excites my body because inside, the rest of me is perfect. The only thing that could make this better would be two bodies here beneath the stars. The longing hits me powerfully, I WANT someone here with me. Two souls becoming one is more spiritual in place like this.
Moonwind is excited to run free in the cold air of the night. The dark and absence of humanity has this effect. To wake the faerie king and sit court over his subjects.
But I know after all these years, it is better to let it pass and enjoy the want than to disturb peace for what will most certainly be a thanks-but-no-thanks.
Sigh.
There can be no losers in this beauty in any case.
After my imagination takes me on a journey past Orion and into the dark places between the stars, I finally drift away. All my anxiety and worry is pointless as I lay here on this little spot in a cosmos larger than my faculty can comprehend.
My dreams are disjointed and calm. I meet the little star-boy from 'What the Crickets Saw' but he doesn't have anything to say, he just waves as he walks through the grass. I meet a computer that seems lost. And I am looking for my sherpa, the beautiful gift-giver from the night before. But she is missing tonight and I have to swim alone.
Moving Indoors
Unbeknownst to me, my wife isn't having the same experience of mental release into the universe. She is still solidly nailed into her own body, watching like an anxious cat at every sound and movement.
I learn this when about a half a mile away, a donkey becomes very upset and begins braying loudly the eee-ohhh! Eeee-oohhhh! Eeee-ohhhh! That donkeys are wont to. Then dogs begin barking loudly. We both then hear the pack of coyotes that seem to have bandied together to accost the poor simple equine.
The almost-laugh-like coyote cries go on for about 5 minutes before peace is restored to our shore.
“You should get in the van, those coyotes might come here next!” She warns.
I wave her off. Those coyotes would take an hour to get here IF they had intent to be here in this spot. The likelihood of them finding our camp is ludicrously small. And I drift back off.
Finally at 5:30, she's had enough and calls me to come inside with her. I know when it's time to give up the fight, so I climb out of my cocoon, close up Van and toss my bedding inside. Locking the doors, I shed my outer skin and climb back into my bag.
“We're not leaving?” She asks.
“NOPE!” I answer quickly. “It's a camper van, and I'm a camping!” My last words for 90m.
Last Straws
“Wake up, I want to go home!” She isn't having fun anymore, so I'm not either.
This is a hard request, I was OUT-thirty. Like deep REM that it takes half an hour to come out of.
I get dressed and start up Camper Van Beethoven to pull away. I step outside to thank the sky for a special night. One that I needed. It's been weeks since I was able to be Moonwind in the night. I miss it and with the coming winter, I'll be wrapped indoors for a few months.
Pulling away I smile at the crunch of gravel again and offer to get coffee at the small store on the way home.
The store is so small, most people wouldn't know it's there. But in the town in which it is located, a population of a=bout 250, it's community central. When we stop, it is abandoned except for the tiny young woman running the kitchen grill. She makes me feel like a giant standing in front of her as she checks me out for a coffee and jalapeño burrito. I have mustard and hot sauce in the van that will turn this in to a glorious gastro-experience.
I start to leave when my wife decides she DOES want something after all. While I wait, the town seems to have awoken. It went from just us and the tiny woman, to 6 vehicles surrounding the place. This is rush hour in a tiny dairy town in North Texas.
I wish I had the time and the energy to get my sketchbook out and capture this place. I won't remember it in a week. But in this liminal moment, it is very special to me.
Journey Home
The ride out to Moonpoint seemed to take forever. But going back is a flash. I barely have time to finish my burrito and coffee and we are back in front of our home. My wife, loopy from not sleeping all night and now charged with coffee, is asking a million questions. It's a thing she doesn't when she wants to talk. The questions aren't really requests for information, they are fuel to start talking.
But, I'm wet kindling. All I want is to claw the sheets back over my head and go meet Tayanme Pa, or whatever night creature wants to hold me in it's heart.
Before the sun is up, I am wrapped warmly and back in dreamland, recovering for a day the will likely ask more than I'm ready to give. But, as always, I'll do my best.
The stars don’t ask to be understood.
They only ask to be seen.
Maybe that’s all love ever wanted, too.
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Thank you for coming here and walking through the garden of my mind. No day is as brilliant in its moment as it is gilded in memory. Embrace your experience and relish gorgeous recollection.
Into every life a little light will shine. Thank you for being my luminance in whatever capacity you may. Shine on, you brilliant souls!
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