Finally, last night it was clear. We set up chairs in the yard before falling into bed at 10. Doubtfully we promised to get up in the middle of the night to see what was left of the meteor showers. Half a sleep at 2:30, I saw an amazing streak across the stretch of sky framed by our bathroom window. We both wrapped ourselves in blankets and perched in the yard. There wasn’t much to the meteor show, but the stars were spectacular. Sometimes the sky seems impossibly infinite to me, but last night it was an overturned bowl decorated at the bottom with millions of glittering dots that lessened at the edges. I completely understood the idea of a flat world with a dome overhead. Science is a wonderful art offering facts and explanations, but there is impossible poetry in the stories we make up. Cold and sleepy, we finally left the star gazing and returned to the house stealing thin slices of chocolate cake washed down with milk before crawling back into bed.
