I Love the Stars.
Our camper has no potty. I’ve grown to love this, even though it involves several nighttime trips. If you weren’t aware, there is a law of the universe that states that if your bathroom is five feet away, you’ll sleep soundly through the night, but if it’s a fifty-yard trek, you will have to go two or three times a night.
But I love these nighttime treks. I can’t keep my eyes off the stars. I’m fascinated by them. The constellations tell the stories of the Greek myths. Isn’t that the coolest? Sometimes I just imagine laying on my back with my (thus far imaginary) children and telling them all the stories.
And I can see how astrology developed. You stare up at the nighttime sky, and it sometimes feel like they’re twinkling just for you, like they know what’s ahead and they’ve got everything planned out.
When I was living in a house, I hardly ever looked at the stars. Usually I was inside at night. Even when I sought them out, it definitely wasn’t a three-times-a-night occurrence for ten minutes apiece.
So I feel sad that we’re going to upgrade our camper in the next year. I like having to trek through the open air to get to the potty. Okay, I hate it when I push myself out of bed, put my shoes on, put my jacket on, and step out into the cold.
Then I’m outside and I look up at the huge, cloudless, twinkling Arizona sky, and everything is okay. The future feels full of good things. I believe in magic.
And all the stars seem to reassure me that I’m on the right path, that I’m doing exactly what I should be doing.
Have you studied the stars lately? What do they tell you?
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Natasha Fondren is a writer traveling the U.S. in a camper with her four cats. She is currently enjoying the lizards and desert heat in Arizona.
I know we’re supposed to be talking about the stars, but I’d rather hear about the times you accidentaly parked too close to a bathroom and got upset because of your cancelled nighttime trek. I’m sure you must be extra happy when it rains, since you can take your mind off the stars and enjoy the beauty of nature!
LOLOL, David! I’ve never been too close, but I do enjoy the rainy nights. Especially when it’s cold.
NOT!
When I was a kid for several summers my family lived in a cottage without indoor plumbing so I recall nighttime treks. We spent a out of time outdoors. The starry sky at night is awesome. Living in cities, staying indoors, we forget. You look up into that infinity and you realize for a moment how petty and ridiculous most of what goes on here on this little planet really is.
Eric, I really like that my life is so much outdoors, now. And yeah, exactly. It does put things in perspective.
“And all the stars seem to reassure me that I’m on the right path, that I’m doing exactly what I should be doing.”
I LOVE this line! I need to post this on my mirror. I love and miss you
Awwww, I miss and love you too! *hugs*
I wouldn’t trade my indoor plumbing for it, but I love looking up at the starry sky. What kid hasn’t stretched out on the grass at night and watched the stars? I think you’re a kid at heart, Natasha.
Me? A kid at heart? LOLOL… wherever did you get that idea?
You know me well, Edie!
When I think of all the times I’ve wandered a sidewalk or path at night, oblivious to uncountable galaxies above me . . . If only I would look up.
Yeah, Stephen. Yeah!
“I wouldn’t trade my indoor plumbing for it, but I love looking up at the starry sky.”
Ha! Exactly! I love this post, Natasha. Me and Harry love looking at the moon, but we rarely get to see the stars clearly (thanks to light pollution and the near-constant clouds!). I really want to take the boys for a winter holiday somewhere where we can see constellations or even planets. I still can’t quite get over the fact that sometimes what you think is a star is actually a planet! How cool is that?!
(And you’ve read Martha Beck’s Finding Your Own North Star, right?)
Awwwww!!! That’s the sweetest, Keris!
And yeah, isn’t that amazing?! Planets! And who knows what life forms live on that planet!
Yes! I loved it!
You need a chamber pot for trips 2&3. I remember the first time I was out West where there is little little pollution. I spent two hours staring up at the sky astonished that all the constellations I knew had disappeared in the abundance of stars. The “bonus” to light pollution is that you only see the brightest ones and these are usually the main ones that define a constellation. When we went to the Caribbean I got to see the Milky Way for the first time in my life.
You are fun to follow on facebook.
Yeah, Laura, sometimes I would kill for a chamber pot!
Wow, that would be cool.
It is a little disappointing that the campground has lights up EVERYWHERE. So you can’t see any stars unless you walk away from the campers.
Any reason to get out and see the stars is a good one. I always liked that element of camping, having to get up and step off into the woods for at least a few moments and feel the night around you.
Oh yes. Definitely, Charles!
I hear ya about the outdoor plumbing. We stay with my brother and SIL at a campground often during the summer and although their trailer has indoor plumbing, I still like to take that walk. The stars are gorgeous and I can appreciate them more. We live near the airport, so we rarely get a night where you see them crystal clear.
That’s awesome, Liz! I wonder how often I’ll take that walk, even when we have indoor plumbing. I hope I don’t get lazy!
I looked at the stars last night when I went down to get my trash can. The big dipper was huge and awesome. Seeing the stars is comforting to me… it’s like they’ve been here a long time, and they’ll be here long after I’m gone.
I love the Big Dipper, Elizabeth! I was looking at it last night! It’s really vivid down here.
When we walk home at night up at our lake house, the heavens stretch out over you to infinity. I live in the mountains, so I get a good perspective on insignificant on a daily basis. But when I see those stars…
My kid asked me if I thought there were aliens. I said, “Look at all those stars. There’s almost no chance that there’s NOT aliens out there somewhere.”
Utter possibility. That’s what the night sky tells me.
Betsy, I’ve always had the same view. How could there NOT be? I mean, it seems impossible to me that the only sentient beings out of all the planets just exist on planet Earth. That’s not even logical!
When I worked as a Naturalist at an Outdoor school, I used to lay on the ground with my group of ten sixth graders like spokes on a wheel, all of our heads together looking up at the night sky. Sometimes we’d make up our constellations. I remember one was shaped like an ice cream cone. That was more than twenty years ago. Thanks for inspiring that memory.
Soon we won’t have a night sky in Fairbanks for a few months. Thanks for the reminder to get out there and enjoy it now!
Aw nice, Paul! Perfect! Wow, that’s the absolute coolest. I bet your students loved you!
The experience sounds beautiful when you describe it. However, when I get up to pee in the middle of the night, I keep one eye closed and the other eye squinty so that I can stay as close to my former sleep state as possible. This means I sometimes smash into walls or furniture. In Arizona, I’d probably fall into a canyon. That would not make me appreciate the stars.
LOLOL, Robin! There is always that danger! I always open my eyes for the stars, but in the morning? Totally one eye closed.
Ibis is REALLY into astronomy so he’s helped me develop an appreciation. I can’t tell you how many times he’s either turned off the lights when we’re driving on a deserted road or pulled off altogther so we can watch them.
In Zihua it was almost always clear and since I took Owen to the roof at least 3-4 times once it was dark, I spent a lot of time staring at the sky. Orion was always my beacon but I could never spot the Big Dipper.
My first week in Michigan I gelt comforted while standing in the driveway at 3am and Orion was right there. Then I turned around the the Big Dipper was framed between two trees. It made my night.
That’s awesome, Melanie! I still don’t understand how the sky works. I mean, is the Big Dipper even visible down there? I can’t find the Small Dipper here. It’s sorta driving me crazy, LOL… I think it’s behind
Do you have the program, Stellarium? It’s free. It’s cool. It’s awesome. You can enter your address, and I think it hooks up with Google Earth or something, so you can see your sky with your background. Like I can see the mountains behind me.
And it lets you put the constellation lines and labels in, and even constellation art. I kinda like that.
I think Ibis has used that. I wondered the same thing about the Big Dipper being visible there. THe alignment seems to be pretty similar, so it’s possible that I had a mountain in the way.
Sounds like Heaven.
I’m in Jersey where the stars don’t shine as bright as when we head down to Virginia camping or out to Pennsylvania.
Right now I’m just waiting for Saturn to leave Virgo and stop beating me up.
Is that what’s been giving me a hard time? I’m all for that, Aimless!
Beautiful, beautiful post, Natasha. A true reflection of its writer.
Two nights ago as I stood in the front yard with my wobbling chihuahua, I looked to the sky and there I saw Orion’s belt, or maybe it was the Three Sisters. Not really sure, but what impressed me most was the sheer brilliance of the Universe to form exact patterns for the enjoyment of mere mortals. Imagine how boring the sky if just a blanket of random sparkle.
Awww, Kath! How is the wobbling chihuahua?
“what impressed me most was the sheer brilliance of the Universe to form exact patterns for the enjoyment of mere mortals. Imagine how boring the sky if just a blanket of random sparkle.”
Wow, yeah. Yeah. So true. And beautiful!
Chihuahua is wobbling less, thanks for asking.
I’m going to be adding a new installment of her journey, in video, on Facebook.
Oh yay! I can’t wait to see it, Kath!
I actually wrote an astronomical column for a small magazine in Canada for 7 years before I moved away. I’ve long been a space cadet, so to speak. The stars in Arizona are particularly lovely to look at, considering the lack of humidity interference.
Lana, that is really cool! Wow, I wish I coulda read it! They are very bright, and lots of them. In Ohio, there’s always so many trees where I was, that I only got to see a small piece of the sky at a time.
I absolutely love the stars. Now that I live in the city, they’re a bit harder to see. I forget how wonderful and plentiful they are until I visit my family in the “country” and look up to see a blanket of stars. Can’t help but stare for a while.
Ami, I hear you! It breaks my heart to not see the stars! The sky here is so much bigger than in Ohio, so that’s cool!
[...] is pretty cool. Even the bad parts, like walking to the bathroom in the middle of the night (getting to see the stars) and the camper rocking wildly in the wind (learning one has neighbors) are pretty darn [...]