When I was 15,

52I snuck out of the house with my older sister one night to enjoy a full moon.

I believe it was Summer, and I had never done that before.

We were both good girls, obeyed our parents, didn’t do drugs, drink, and other shenangins. I didn’t even swear! But one night, my older sister came up with a fun idea for us, and I couldn’t say no. It seemed like innocent fun. We lived in a good neighborhood, surrounded by farms. We often left the door unlocked. The skies there were amazing, though I didn’t know to appreciate the view as much as I do now.

Now, I live in a city where the night sky is polluted by street lights and commercial signs. You can squint to try and make out a dot or two, but you rarely see the cascading array of individual stars that make up the milkyway like you can in the country.

God, I miss the country.

I appreciate the manmade lights for what they are, for who created them, but it’s all known. I know a person made lightbulbs. I know a person designed the shape of the sign. I might even know the cousin of whoever put the darned thing up!

But as much as I try, as much as I assume, preach, I don’t KNOW how the stars, the sky, the balls of gas, the infitinte galaxies out there popped into existence.

Aliens? God? Yamaha – er wait, Yaweh? Allah? Gaia? The Force?

Call it many things, it is all the same thing: Unknown.

Usually I hate the unknown. HATE. IT.

HATE! UGH! It’s terrifying!

Usually…

But when I look at the night sky, I can’t hate it. I can only marvel.

This photo was taken with a sucky camera, on a night with very little light, but it doesn’t matter. It still captures that relationship, that moment of human marveling the unknown.