Skyward

The first time I remember staring purposefully in to the sky, I was a small child looking at the stars. It was late at night, and the mountain air was cold. A family home in the rocky mountains afforded me the opportunity to look deep into the heavens with clear skies and quiet surroundings frequently. I had been sent on an errand outside, and was quickly crossing the distance between the structure where I was retrieving something and the house. It was very dark. This darkness usually startled me, but tonight, I was captivated by it. I was engulfed, the only light within eyesight located behind me. I was about halfway to my destination when I slowed my pace and looked skyward. The stars were unimpeded and at their sharpest. They sparkled. I remember the stirrings I was beginning to experience during that time. I was just starting to consider who I was in the world and what I wanted from it. When I looked up, I was looking for answers. And I guess it’s something I have continued to do.

Later, I was a freshman in high school. Confused, strange, but happy. A pretty similar description to who I am now. For Halloween, I had dressed as Cruella de Vil and attended a small theater nearby that was showing Creature of the Black Lagoon. While my friends and I were watching the movie, the first snow of the year had arrived. It came down hard, and late that night when the companion driving me home tried to drop me off, we found her car couldn’t make it up the steep hills to my my parent’s house. It was only about a mile from where we had made it to and I lived in a hushed neighborhood filled with sleeping residents, so I decided to walk the remaining distance. I clutched the long black dress in my hands as I climbed the slope, leaving virgin footprints as I trudged. It wasn’t very cold, truly an autumn evening, and the snow had stopped falling. It was the heavy kind that muted everything nearby, casting silence. A few minutes after my friend had driven away, I stopped and turned to look around. I lifted my gaze and took in the pink-red clouds bombarding every inch of sky. Thick, impermeable. As though they were the very lid to the world, a cotton ball between the container and the contained. I enjoyed this moment. It was filled with harmony, and a love of the earth itself. It was beautiful, and I appreciated that. I felt the sensation of standing on the cusp of opportunity.

In the next moment that sticks out I was older, but not much. I was laying in the grass with the first boy I ever loved. My heart still raced when I was with him, and our hands lay intertwined under the blanket. The outlook itself that night was not remarkable, but my feelings were. He was pointing out the satellites and constellations of the cosmos. I remember the sight of his hand cutting across the space above us to show me the designs he was sharing with me, but being instead caught up in sound of his voice and the circumstance. It was a warm night, and the breeze was light and comfortable. I could hear the grass and the crickets, a summer soundtrack to the first one in which I had a license, a car, and a boyfriend. Existence felt big, and exciting.

Another was many years later, with high school behind me and some young adulthood under my belt. Restless, and in many ways angry. I felt let down by the difficulty of navigating responsibility. But I was learning about the good times that came with this era of life too. When I wasn’t at my dead end job or the college classes I was barely passing, I was fooling around with my friends. And it was paradise. We would drive to the top of a nearby reservoir that overlooked the city and smoke pot in the car. It was reckless and blatant stupidity. Breaking the law, and doing it carelessly. But I didn’t realize that at the time. All I knew was that ironically, I was bursting with purpose on those nights. We would park at the same lot each time and stare out over the scene. The sky was often colorful and alive. It was usually cold so we sat in the car. Passing spongy joints between each other and talking philosophy and politics. I felt empowered, with a few dollars in my bank account and no genuine direction in front of me. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. The memories I have of this sky are of it changing and stretching in to many different ones. But just like the scenes before it, the blue beyond was the backboard to everything happening within me.

The last one I would make special mention of was some time later. I stared out the window of the bus carrying me from one coast of Central America to another. Now married, my husband sleeping beside me as we went along. The ride had been long, and glorious. The scenery was unfamiliar and moving, both in my heart and literally. We streamed passed vines and vegetation, and all the while the sky turned from dusky dawn to high noon to early sunrise. I watched it all happen and listened to my favorite album on repeat. To this day, I can’t listen to it without feeling the sensation of seeing Costa Rica glide beside me. The trees were tall and the sky above them was swollen with wetness and sweet smells. A new decision was blossoming within me: motherhood, soon. It was warring with the part of me that flourished in time alone, in my independence. To and fro my mind paced over each idea. Sometimes I listened and sometimes I just ignored them both. I told myself to remember the goodness of this day, when I was in a different place entirely but had the same heart beating in my chest. I basked as I felt the universe turn, and my ability to hide within that, wherever I was. My singularity feeling peaceful on the precipice of creating new life and new chaos. The beauty of my surroundings could one day be shared with my children I mused. I was still so innocent. I remind myself of that when pain shrouds my every move. Surely there must be innocence left in me even now?

I have witnessed the surreal brilliance of a sky scorched by wildfire fumes and the clarity of one following days of windstorms. With the looming iridescence of the full moon and when no greater body than the curve of our own planet is visible on the horizon. Through every season and in countless places, I have been granted innumerable opportunities to be that girl in the mountains, and to be so much more. I stop, frequently, to look skyward and to search. But so many of my old thoughts are quiet now. The main occupation of my mind’s questions relate to Beckett. Not a singular query, but an endless parade of them. The whats and whys and hows. The obvious, and some things you probably wouldn’t expect. They beat against my skull, as my feet beat against the pavement to a long hill at the edge of my neighborhood, and more often than not, I stop to look out over the landscape. My range of vision is carried high in to the atmosphere that sits atop another breathtaking view. Light blue, swirls of yellow, browns, and greens. I often find myself wondering if Beckett and explanations could be behind a whirlpool of clouds, just beyond my sight. I might call out to him. Sometimes in anguish, and sometimes just so he knows I am thinking about him. But my questions are far from limited to him. And his name isn’t the only one I call.

Confused, strange, but happy. Still that. But also sad, outraged, and splintered. Filled with purpose and direction and self-assurance. I think smallness, when it doesn’t crush us, is actually very freeing. The sky tells me to do as I see fit, because it doesn’t mind and it doesn’t care. I am always looking to it for answers, and it is untroubled by that. I am a speck on its horizon, and it has vast watercolored artwork to catalyze.