A post, or something like it

I had so much fun bringing you all in on the three-part story this week that Holly and Madge and I shared. Thanks for all of your great comments, and for playing along with us.

Now it’s Friday and the end of a very long week, and I’m exhausted.  The holidays and the end of the year are sliding toward me like a kid on skates, all crazy arms and no way to stop without falling down.

So maybe I’ll fall, too. Except then no one would eat turkey or watch the parade on Thanksgiving or get presents on Christmas morning. And I’d miss my one chance each year to eat pecan pie without guilt. And I do make good gravy. And decorate a pretty tree.

No falling, then.

Last weekend at the observatory, one of the guides said something that I knew already, in an academic sense, but for some reason it felt like he had just said something big. He said, “When you go outside and look at the sky, remember that you’re looking at the past.” Meaning, of course, that the light left those stars long ago, and we’re just seeing it now.

The past altering our perception of the present – making it more bearable, more beautiful, even. (Of course, it can work the other way, too, but let’s not talk about that tonight.)

And past or present, it was so damn beautiful. That night, the sky was so thick with stars that we could barely pick out the constellations.

The darker the sky…

(you know I’m going to say it, like it’s some kind of cheesy, feel-good Hallmark card…)

…the more stars we can see.

Really dark sky. More stars. Got it.

Enough chicken soup for the ever-loving soul. Now, I’m going to send you over to a conversation that had me doubled over laughing tonight. A few weeks ago, on my birthday, Madge wrote a Ten Things Tuesday post for me in which #9 revealed that we can laugh and then cry, without segue, about a particular topic. We’ll let you in on it, and you’ll either laugh or think we’re nuts. (We’re hoping for the first, but the last wouldn’t hurt our feelings. Rest and doctor-prescribed psychotropic drugs. Show me a mom who would turn that down.)

Tagged as: It's a Mad Madge World, Kitt Peak Observatory, Madge, observatory, past, present, shit I make up to make me feel better, stars