The Companion
Durn. Summer’s back. Went outside this morning. It was hot. I hesitate to disparage summer. But enough is enough. This is late September. Shouldn’t summer be off somewhere else? I mean what’s so appealing about the Hill Country that it has to stay around and torment us. Let cool air have a chance. Although I should be careful about what I ask for. I understand a polar vortex is swirling around up north and may had our way this winter. Whoopie!
Oh well. The sky is clear this morning and although it beginning to feel as though most of Texas has moved our way, the sky is still dark, and the stars still shine, and I can look up and see Jupiter and Orion’s belt and the Milky Way and feel star blessed. I’ll take it while I can get it, because looking at the stars is pure pleasure and it’s one of the reasons we used to like to camp back in the day. We were in the wilderness, and it was dark, and it was just us and the sky.
Now days its just me and the sky. But the sky is a great companion. Constant and true. Always there for me to look at, to gaze upon, to wonder about. To welcome me. It gives me sunsets and sunrises and bright stars and the moon in all it’s phases. And there are the clouds that slide by and the blue skies, and the rain. It’s hard to go wrong with the sky above me. There for the looking and I look, all the time and it lets me and even welcomes me, without even a sideways glance.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver's Tale