One of my favorite things to do when I was a kid was to go with my Dad and brother Michael to the middle of nowhere to watch for meteor showers. Dazzling displays of falling stars every few minutes.
In Central California it's not hard to drive to where you can see the night sky in perfect glory. The sky so dark that the Milky Way hangs in the air like a river of stars.
We would drive to the Sierra foothills between one and four a.m., park on the side of the road, and get out our lawn chairs. We sat there for hours, our Timex watches lighting our faces every few minutes until the show would start, and then time froze as light danced across the sky.
Those moments our some of my favorite childhood memories.
Tonight, August 12th now, so technically morning, was suppose to be a magnificent meteor shower. It's 1:46 a.m. as I write this. The peak of the shower was supposed to be between one and two this morning. I went outside and didn't see anything, and now I'm in the house again. Maybe there's too much light pollution. Maybe I didn't wait long enough. Maybe I missed it. Maybe the guy on the nightly news got it wrong.
I'm standing outside again, just in case, but I still see no shooting stars. It's amazing how still the night seems this early in the morning. The crickets chirping. Lawns being watered in the distance. And cars driving fiercely on I-15. I never hear the freeway like this in the middle of the day. One star in particular is twinkling rapidly between white, blue, and red. Maybe it's a planet.
Nope. Going back inside. It's nearly 2:00.
For a second I thought I saw one, but I quickly realized that there are mountains where I saw it. Hopeful imagination.
Wishes can wait.
Dreams are waiting for me on my pillow.
Good night.
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