Starry-Eyed

On the way to the laundry room tonight, I walked out under a crisp January sky and looked up to see Orion. An old friend. Low in the sky, but high enough to see without the indignity of looking up his dress.

I found Orion when I was in college, on a similar cold and crisp night. A couple of friends and I walked to a meadow on campus and stretched out on a small rise with our heads pointing to the east. The lights from Earth didn't penetrate quite so far into the middle of the field, so the ones above were spectacular.

One of my friends was a more-seasoned star-gazer and starting pointing out the constellations. I had a crush on him, so I listened very intently. And very soon, I was enchanted. Both with him and the stars.

I lost touch with Jim many, many years ago. Once I told him I was gay, we kind of drifted apart. He had at least one homosexual encounter that I know of, and he was conflicted about it. Me telling him I had a crush on him after knowing him for 4 years didn't help.

Some things change, and others will remain long after we're all gone. Orion will continue to grace the sky on crisp winter evenings when my ashes sit in a small cemetary in Tennessee. He'll still be magnificent, majestic and awe-inspiring.

And I'll still be wondering what he's carrying on his belt. (Dirty old men don't die--they just get cremated.)

I didn't know that stretching out on a rise in a meadow in the middle of winter and looking at the sky would change my fundamental perspective of life and death and "being" forever.

But it did.

Like looking at the ocean, looking at the night sky when the stars are bright, you can see forever. Infinity becomes real. The impossible becomes possible. Eternity seems real.

It seems more real than the alternative, in fact.

And from where my ashes will be in Tennessee in that small country cemetary in my family's plot, they'll have a great view of the eastern sky. Shannon will have the rest, but I'm sure he'll put me where I can see the stars.