Beautiful.

I remember the first time I saw the Milky Way in its entirety. I’m sure it wasn’t the first time I saw it, but it was the first time I really noticed it. I was away at band camp somewhere near Marble Falls. It was Friday night, and all of us were sprawled out in a grassy area to watch a movie (one of the Herbie, Love Bug ones) on a screen set up on a makeshift stage. I’d lain back on my blanket just as the band director turned off the spotlights, and the majesty of the stars filled my view. It took my breath away, and it must have done so for everyone. No one moved to start the movie, and in the darkness could be heard whispered “Wow” and “Awesome” and “Oh, look over there!” That night, a few hundred teenagers and a handful of adults stopped and stared at the sky as though we’d never seen it before.

I haven’t seen anything but the brightest of stars in a decade. Austin has awful light pollution. Even my mother’s back yard, where I spent many nights after that trip to band camp lying in the cool grass and staring upwards, isn’t as dark as it used to be. I keep meaning to go out, away from the cities, to see the Milky Way again, but it never happens. There’s never enough time (or a million other excuses). I’m sure that after not having seen the sky as it should be seen in so long, it would amaze me again just as it did when I was a teenager.

I think we should go camping in West Texas this fall. Nothing out there but flat desert and darkness and a sky to cover it all.