Happy Place
Last week saw the return of the Perseid meteor shower - and so, like every year, we prepared to tip our eyes skywards in the early morning hours in the hopes of seeing shooting stars.
On Wednesday night/Thursday morning, I woke without meaning to - perhaps just the stars trying to sing me out of dreams and into the night. It must have worked because Eric and I grabbed a couple of hammocks and headed outside to see what we could see.
It’s been so hazy, so smoky and smoggy, that I hadn’t had much hope…but we were given the gift of the clearest skies we’ve seen since June. There’s still light pollution at our house, bleeding up into the night sky from towns and cities in the south and the northeast, but in those wee hours we saw all sorts of flashes and sparks in the heavens.
The next night, or rather early Friday morning, my parents and younger brother drove out and met us among the swaying grasses and owl calls to ring in my mama’s birthday with more streaks of light. The air has been so miserable that we didn’t make plans to camp this year - but we were gifted yet another clear night (air quality classified as “good” - unheard of! An August miracle!!) and spent a few hours sat around a little campfire, talking and eating s’mores and looking up.
I brought my camera, ready to try and capture the night sky and the bubble of peace held within the light cast by our little fire, but ended up leaving it in the truck. I’ve had this feeling, for a few years now, that each time we get to sit together and watch the Perseids, it might be our last. Not because someone is going to DIE, but because I truly believe there will come a year when we don’t get a break in the haze. When our skies here are muddy from June to October. And then, maybe, beyond that too. I just couldn’t let that anxious need to capture it, to try and HOLD it, compete with actually living and experiencing those precious moments with my people, spent outdoors under a still-clear sky.
I can’t say that I made too many wishes either night, though I had many opportunities…but if I were to make one right now it would be that someone - just ONE person - might decide that this world is worth saving and make some changes to lessen their impact. I’m of the mind that all of us who are privileged enough to do so should choose to be at least medium-uncomfortable, doing with a little less and having things be less convenient, in order to keep our planet from getting to the point where we don’t have a choice but to be all-the-way-uncomfortable all the time.
This train of thought would very much like to run away with me, turning from ramble to rant in a matter of sentences, so I’ll let it rest here. I’m in a space where I feel so hopeful about my own little life and so hopeless about the rest of the world that I end up in knots - trying to shrink my footprint and hold to my path while also being struck again and again by the fact that I’m not doing enough (example : not using gas to drive out to the plains to watch meteors BUT having a campfire, which adds to poor air quality, and eating s’mores, the bits and pieces of which came wrapped in plastic). It’s like every win comes with a loss and ‘bittersweet’ is the taste that’s forever in my mouth.
Ugh. Bleh! See? Knots.
On a completely unrelated note, I have a question…
Am I growing :
A) A garden
B) A jungle
While the answer would appear to be B) A jungle, I think there’s a garden hiding in there somewhere, probably growing less because of me and more in spite of me!
I planted too many things. There are weeds absolutely everywhere. Pretty much all I do is turn on the drip system every day and then switch it off after thirty minutes (except for one day where it ran for about twelve hours because I got distracted and forgot to set a timer). And yet…
Walking under the greenhouse frame, under the hail netting and shade cloth, is like entering a whole new world. You can FEEL the oxygen rising from the leaves, easily detect the upward change in humidity as you pick your way through the plants. Even on our worst air quality days, the tightness in my chest eases here. My throat feels less scratchy.
In a couple weeks the tomatoes will be ready to pick and wash and cook down into sauce (that we’ll then freeze and eat all winter long). The squash will trade their lingering green hues for warmer tones. Next year, things will be tidier and I’ll actually be able to walk down the rows without playing hopscotch over the vines and branches - but for now, none of this matters much. This is just my happy place.
