One of my earliest memories from childhood is a visit that my parents made to a family friend. The visit ran long, and during our stay, a thunderstorm rolled through the Willamette Valley. I remember the chaos--the flashes of light and the shaking of the house with each roll of thunder. I must have fallen asleep; by the time we left the house, the storm was gone, and in it’s place, a brilliant starry sky. I can still see it 25 years later. This was only the first moment I remember the stars. As I grew older I learned their names. From my Dad I learned to locate them in the vastness of the sky, and even how to use them to navigate.
One morning a month or so back, I woke up around 3am. Unable to get back to sleep, I rose, and went out to the yard, to look at the sky. There were the Pleiades, and beneath it was Mars, both hanging silently in the cool early-morning sky. I had expected neither, and being half asleep at the time, that peaceful scene felt like a dream. For several nights after, I stayed up as late as I could, so as to catch a glimpse of my salmon-colored friend, silently watching me from millions of miles away. The weeks went on, and the winter constellations began to make their faces more and more known. A couple weeks later, I awoke after having fallen asleep on our porch swing to find the familiar shape of Orion just over the horizon, shimmering low in the eastern sky. The end of summer had arrived.
The stars have a way of making one feel less alone, though I’m not sure how to pinpoint exactly why. Perhaps it’s their consistency, and distance. They appear at dusk, and disappear at dawn, making their rounds, parading across the heavens like the hands of a celestial clock, flickering like candles as they fade at the horizon. I met a young man picnicking with his girlfriend at a park one evening while I waited for Antares to appear, and we got to talking. During our conversation, he commented how some people have a personal relationship with the stars. It was an interesting way of phrasing it, but I don’t think its inaccurate. Sometimes it does feel like a relationship.
I continued my evening star walks, and almost every night I found a new star or planet. It was like a scavenger hunt, a quest to meet mysterious figures hiding in the back rooms of some ancient library. One night, while looking at a digital star chart, I advanced the clock to around 6am, when a new circle emerged above the horizon, larger than any other, and flashing on the computer screen with an unrivaled intensity, barely poking over the horizon for two hours before its light was consumed by the coming day. I was intrigued.
Sirius: the dog star, the brightest star in the sky. I had heard of it, but couldn’t recall having seen it myself. I tried to imagine what it would look like: dimmer than Jupiter but brighter than Vega, though by how much I wasn’t sure. I needed to see that star for myself. It would be the crown jewel that would make my impromptu summer project complete. I had a two hour window just before dawn--bad news for a night owl--but an upcoming morning shift would have me up at the right time.
The day before my early morning was cloudy and cool. A west wind off the ocean pushed the thin haze of wildfire smoke out of the sky, and by the mid afternoon, the clouds were beginning to dissipate. As it grew dark, the night sky was clearer than I had seen it in months. It felt like walking across a stage the night before a play opened: everything was in order. At 6:00 the next morning, my alarm went off.
There were no clouds obscuring the eastern horizon, no haze. But, as it turned out, it wasn’t clouds I would need to worry about. While my star chart had shown several stars still be visible at six, as I stepped out onto the deck, I discovered, to my dismay, that it was already light. Jupiter was not yet snuffed out, but there were no stars. Not ever Sirius in all its alleged glory could shine through the sunlight ducking over the horizon. I walked to the highest spot in the neighborhood hoping that perhaps it was just hiding behind the trees, but to no avail. I would need to get up earlier.A few days later I woke up before my alarm. I just about went back to sleep, when something in my head clicked. I checked the clock: 5:30am, and I was up. Somehow, I’d woken myself up at the perfect time. I got dressed and stepped out onto the deck.
The sky was clear again, but it was still dark. It only took a second to spot it: hiding in the branches of a hawthorn tree, a brilliant light, flickering with color: Sirius. I walked up the hill, and stood once more at the highest point at our neighborhood, just as dawn was breaking. “Nice to meet you,” I murmured as the coming day began to drown out its fainter brethren.
I wanted to say that my project is complete, but the days are already getting shorter. As winter creeps in, Sirius will rise earlier, and with it, no doubt, stars I had never stopped to admire before. Finding Sirius wasn’t the end of my project at all; it was the beginning.
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Kramer Paper Online - Vol. LXXVII
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