08.13.2007 - 4:24 p.m.

I was up until 3:45 last night, waiting for the sky to clear enough to show me a meteor. It never did. There were a few eye-corner flashes that might have been, but nothing I could be sure of. And despite my secret hope, it was also not the case that staying up late delayed Monday�s arrival.

That shit never works.

I remember the first time my father ever woke me up to go see an eclipse. It was cold, and he�d given me Mom�s winter coat to wear like a bathrobe over my pajamas. I was seven, maybe eight. He explained while we walked out to a nearby field, about how even the earth had a shadow, only you hardly ever got to see it. But we would.

I was excited, giddy with stolen time, the shadows of every blade of grass standing out for me, stark in the frigid light. My calves were cold and my cheeks stung, but I didn�t mind. I leaned back against the warmth of Dad�s legs as he pointed up to the moon. �See,� he said, �It�s started.�

I looked up, expecting to see the moon almost completely obscured, or perhaps to see the shadow actually moving across it, as I think I had seen in some cartoon or another. What I saw was the same moon there always was, missing a part of the curve of one side. Not much different than it always looked.

�It�s not very big,� I pouted.

And I don�t remember his answer to that, but I remember, listening to him, the way my awareness expanded, flew through a void I could barely imagine, danced with asteroids and icy comets, and hovered to watch the planets' solemn waltz around the sun, the moon's around the earth.

And then I came back down, and I was myself in the chilly expanse of that field, orbiting my father.

-stonebridge

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