This morning, at exactly 4:03 AM, I looked up while I was on my morning walk and caught one of those tiny moments that makes the entire world feel cinematic. When I walk, I’m almost always looking up or looking down. Rarely straight ahead at eye level. Eye level feels like where the standard world happens…where we’re used to interacting with people, traffic, buildings and whatever is directly in front of us. But when I’m walking alone in the dark, I find myself interacting with everything above and below me instead. The sky. The moon. The stars. The earth beneath my feet.
And this morning, I’m especially glad I was looking up.
The waning full moon was still hanging in the sky southwest of Taurus and Orion stretched out before me, and then suddenly, a shooting star cut across the darkness painting the sky a bright ember yellow for a quick second.
This was only the second shooting star I’ve ever witnessed since I’ve moved to the desert, but this one was so bright and so vivid that for one brief second, I swear if I’d reached my index finger toward the sky, I would’ve been E.T. calling home. It was gone almost as quickly as it appeared. Maybe a second, if that. But I saw it. Had I been looking straight ahead instead of up, I would’ve missed the entire fucking thing.
The Dark Desert Sky Hits Different
One of my favorite things about living in the desert is how little light pollution there is (as well as people). When the sun disappears, the sky gets to be the main character. The stars look sharper, the moon feels brighter, and entire constellations seem close enough to reach out and touch. There’s something about walking through that kind of darkness that brings out the magic for me. Add a shooting star flashing across it, and suddenly my regular morning walk felt like a scene someone had written specifically for me.
