Lighting Up The Night

In the city, the lights often hide the stars, leaving us with a smooth gray night sky to ponder. The first time I visited Jack's family, in Nebraska, I was agog at the amazing light display after sunset and immediately sprawled myself in his grandmother's yard, content to spend the rest of my evening entertained by the light show. Having never lost their starry view to city lights, they had no idea what I was doing and quite certainly spoke in hushed voices about the odd new girl who refused to move from her spot in the yard.

Some things never change. For everything that I love about living in the city, I still feel robbed when I see the stars that blanket the sky in Michigan. Without agenda, I could easily lay quietly in the yard with the girls for hours, awed by the depth and brilliance of the lights available on the other side of the water.

Mary and Kate are keeping a night sky log for school. Every evening at 7:30 we tromp out to the back deck, pajamas on, and look up, hoping to find something of interest to note in their journals. In two nights we have yet to see the moon; Mary thought she saw a star but it was only a very slow moving plane. Our night sky is glowing not from stars but from these lights,

which shine for the last time tonight. The end of summer, the end of yet another sad and dismal baseball season in Chicago.

Tomorrow, perhaps, we will see the moon.