Walking the Wall

I heard somewhere that there are people who have lived their lives in
big cities who have never once seen a star by looking into the sky.
There seems to be something terribly sad about that, that they never
got out of the city, but more that they can’t just look up and see the
stars–even though we no longer use the stars to tell us where we are,
when you can look up into a sky full of stars, you get the sense of how
big the universe really is. After having family fun tonight, we got out
of the pool and laid down flat in lawn chairs and watched the sky until
midnight. My son got three wishes out of three shooting stars, my
daughter caught two, and then finally perseverance paid off and I was
able to see one as well. The big dipper sat in all its glory over the
garage, and we watched numerous planes and satellites move across the
night sky with an odd juxtaposition of a quiet night sky combined with
examples of the busy-ness of the world around us. There was a beautiful
breeze going on and I was once more struck with how wonderful it is to
watch the trees dance and hear them rustle at night. There are many
wonderful places that I have been, and many beautiful places I want to
go to some day…but there was no where I would have rather been
tonight than laying in the dark with my family enjoying a beautiful
July night sky.