The Night Sky

My writing prompt for the day is "The Night Sky". I live in an area of the country where it is pretty easy to get away from the lights of the city and see the night sky in pretty near true form. We can see more stars here than say, Denver. I like the time of year that I walk out of work and see the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn all in a perpendicular row over the Monument. The most recent time I saw that, the sun hadn't quite finished setting, and there was a slight orange glow over the hills and the stars and stood out like well placed poster board stickers.

The night sky in Grand Lake is much more clear. I was always surprised when I went to the cabin how many stars were actually in the sky. I loved sitting outside in the middle of the night in complete silence and looking at the sky. Occasionally there would be a shooting star, and the constant reminder of how small I am.

The night sky that impressed me the most was when I lived on The Shire. Somehow at sea level, we seemed closer to the sky. I could reach out and touch the horizon. The sky folds down and wraps its warmth around you at that place and, in the middle of no where, you feel safer than anywhere else on Earth. The sky was filled, like someone had taken a silver colored pen and made dots everywhere they could on a piece of paper. But they never spent too much time close together. Shooting stars were amazingly common out there, probably because we had no light at all and could see the sky more clearly than any other place I've been. I learned to navigate by the stars. I can't remember any of it now, but I used to be able to identify almost all of the major constellations. From that time of being a little girl, to now being an adult, I find myself impressed with the night sky and the peace it brings to my soul.