On requisite walk tonight. The neighborhood quiets down. I see them. There they are. The Big Dipper. Polaris. Cassiopeia. Leo. I saw them last night too. Only last night there were more. Millions more. Those same constellations were there too of course but lost in the magnitude. Wrapped in down just a sleeping pad tossed on the rocks next to Upper Silent Lake buried high and deep in North Cascades National Park. The shadows of Fisher Peak and the immense north face of Black Peak hanging glaciers and all rising to the west. I just laid there staring. Counted twelve meteors leftovers from the Perseid a couple leaving trails behind them after they had disintegrated in atmospheres invisible. I could not help but to stare overwhelmed the Milky Way arcing overhead tracing its way across a pitch black night sky all of it there to remind me of how small I am. The vastness and immensity of it all. How many billions of light years had the light from that star traveled to reach me? Billions. Of how we are all spinning out of control but stabilized by the sight of the stars just covering me as if to say at least one of them out there I have traveled three-point-seven billion light years to reach you so do not forget that. Yes you are small. Yes you are weak. Yes you are frail. Sometimes you try. Sometimes you fail. But do not forget that.
Do not forget that.
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