scribblechic

I am a great thinker of dreams, a poor planner of deeds. My thoughts are consistently conjuring magic, while my actions are often lost in daydreams. It was this Achilles heel that inspired seasons of good intentions and misplaced effort; glow-in-the-dark stars bundled into forgetfulness.

From the time our first child was born, my husband and I made grand plans to gather the stars for our son. Holidays and birthdays brought books, a telescope, and tiny plastic stars to be stored for another time.

The telescope was a poor quality, a compromise of cost. The books were read and disregarded. The stars, a task postponed until forgotten.

This fall, before the night air became cool, you could find our son lying on the ground outside as our dog ran playful circles around his shape. My teenager was once again the elementary student of the stars, marveling at a sky unpolluted by development.

I would wonder at his thoughts, but leave him to our pup’s companionship. Just a boy and his dog without a care in the world, smaller for the scale of the sky.

There is something comforting beneath the familiarity of the stars; markers of space in memorized shapes.

After our move, watching our son stargaze and our daughter daydream about decorating empty walls, my husband and I revisited an old love with new attentiveness.

This Christmas we shared with our children a new telescope and linked together evenings under the stars. Already this winter we have begun mapping the sky and searching the texture of the moon. We also, finally, hung those pesky plastic stars above our daughter’s bed.

It was only after the last constellation was contrived that our son mentioned his lost stars, remorsefully considering the years his own ceiling waited on our good intentions. It was our daughter who counted her leftover stars and lead the way to making right an old promise.

Now both children sleep beneath the stars and we are all falling in love with old lessons in an ancient sky.