The design in the stars

When I was younger, I could lay on the patio for hours on an autumn day staring at the sky. I wondered how it could be so incredibly blue, so impossibly clear, so wonderfully vibrant. I could feel something in it, something entrancing, but I could never quite put a finger on it.

When I feel the chill of the Midwest winter winds rushing into my lungs, the sky distracts me from my work in the evenings. I notice that even at midnight, it's a strange mix of mauve and sunset orange, glowing with the lights from the city. I ponder the color of the clouds, swollen with snowflakes ready to fall. Something about it keeps me gazing.

When I can tell a spring storm is ahead, I look first to the sky. The curious, sickly green color of the sky that settles around me is fascinating. I eagerly anticipate the lightning that shocks the area around me from the darkness. I am calmed by the drumming of the rain, the shaking of the thunder.

And when I'm home in the summer, I can see the stars. I have always had a love affair with the summer stars, shining and glinting in the navy blue velvety sky. I watch them for hours, searching for answers, for a design in the stars that might be the same as the one in my heart.

I am still unable to say what keeps me watching, which answers I desire from my sky, but I do think I might be getting there. Maybe one star is burning just for me, trying to find its way to me because there are billions of them and billions of us and it's so hard to find just the right match. Maybe there's a hint in the purple of the winter clouds or in the bluest sky I've ever seen. Maybe someone else wonders the same things as he watches his own version of the sky.

Maybe someday I'll know. Maybe not. But at this moment, I can live with the mystery.