When I was little, I used to love staring at the stars. My parents live in a somewhat secluded area, separated from their neighbors by a large yard, and the sky around there is an open wonderland. The big dipper, constellations, peppered specks like paint; I used to study it in the way of an artistic masterpiece. It was magic.
I can’t say when it happened, but the stars, somehow, stopped shining as bright.
My boys share a small room with their bunkbed placed against a single large window. They like to keep the shade open a notch at night, to see outside. Buzz has recently taken to noticing the stars and the moon before bed.
“Come on, Mommy”, he urges, “I see a star.”
With barely a glance back, I reply, “I see it, too.”
“I see the moon”, he continues.
Sure enough, he does. But do I? It’s been a long day, I don’t have time for this, I think in tired exasperation, and begin an attempt to hush him to sleep. Meanwhile, he’s still reaching and fascinated at the brazen points of twinkling night, brightly flaring up the sky in his confiding brown eyes.
I remember that awe, I remember that wonder, it hasn’t been that long ago. When did I start being so dismissive in the face of innocent admiration? I’ve been so consumed with just getting by, but it takes only a minute to look up.
I need to take a lesson from my son and start appreciating the stars again.
I remember looking up at them and feeling so small. Then again, I was small. 🙂 But you are right. That’s what I love about kids–we get to experience those things all over again.
Lovely post – it takes the fascination in everything of a small child to make you stop and smell the roses, or see the stars doesn’t it? When I was away in Utah at Bryce, one of the best places for star gazing in the US apparently, I did look up and see those stars and there is something very magical about it, we just have to try and remember these things.
Children have a way to stop and make you notice. My daughter loves to look at the moon and always tells me to look at it with her.
Oh, I know…
“I need to take a lesson from my son and start appreciating the stars again” — they could teach us so much if only we didn’t resist.
Lovely post.
Well written.
We were walking this afternoon and my daughter asked me to skip with her. But, I was carrying her sister and three grocery bags. I said I wanted to, but I was carrying too much. I often feel like I want to just be and see and play as they do, but I am always carrying too much.
I love the stars–everything about them. I’d like to think that in another life I would have been an astronomer because it is something I am very passionate about. But, even in my passion, I don’t always notice them. I guess it’s time to renew that interest. The Universe, here I come.
We even have a telescope. It lives in the back corner of the closet and hasn’t focused in on the moon in at least a year.
Thank Buzz for giving us a wake-up, too.
@Kelly, We have a telescope, too. My parents bought it for my oldest last Christmas. I don’t think we’ve used it for it’s intended purpose once.
They’re magic,aren’t they? We all need to slow down and remember to appreciate things like that…especially as the busy holiday season approaches.
I need to take a lesson from my son and start appreciating the stars again. — Yes, this is the lesson I’m learning again and again as I mother my little boy. This re-appreciation of the world, this reminder of what life looks like through a child’s eyes, is the most important gift that our children give us if we can only slow ourselves down enough to accept it. This is something that I try to remember every day…some days go better than others, of course.