Earlier today, I was going through stuff on my computer, moving/organzing, and getting rid of old stuff I don't need, and I came across this thing (I don't really know what to call it...a vignette?) that I wrote a little more than a year ago. It struck some sort of chord with me...I'm not exactly sure why. I guess it seems appropriate to my mood. And yet, not. I guess what I mean is...the circumstances under which I wrote this have all changed, but the sentiment it represents is still within me. It means something else now, and yet I think, mysteriously, that it express what I feel right now better than a lot of things I've written recently. I'm talking myself in circles and not making sense (as usual), so....here it is:
I went stargazing like I said I would. It’s really special to me, stargazing. I know we didn’t do it often, but it meant so much to me those times when we did. There was just something about looking up and feeling so small and being with you and knowing God could see us, lying all out in the open like that. Like He was looking down and shining straight at us and telling us to keep on shining too. Just like before, I went out the back door, blanket in hand, and walked out towards the graveyard, such an unlikely place to feel so alive. I didn’t go as far as we used to go since I was alone and a little bit more scared of the dark than I’d ever admit. I unfolded the blanket just enough so my little self could fit and I sat down, sniffling and shivering in the 65 degree weather on the first real day of spring. I know you think I’m a crybaby and I hate that, and I hate crying, really I do, but I won’t lie, I was crying so hard I couldn’t lay down at first I was shaking so much. But when I did, oh, the feeling! The feeling was so big I could taste it. Me and the sky and a dog barking off in the distance and that was all there was in the world but all of that was more than I could take in. The stars twinkled like I hadn’t seen them do in a good while and I felt bad for not noticing them often enough and I knew I’d been missing out on the show. I couldn’t move or even think about anything but God and how big He is and how crazy He is and how small I am and how He manages to still care about the hairs on my head. I got lost in the bigness of the sky and could hardly find myself for a while, and I didn’t even care. Then I saw it: the big dipper, the only constellation I could ever find on my own. I felt dumb not knowing what else was up there besides that silly dipper and then I thought what on earth is a dipper anyway and that made me laugh a little and it made me love you and it made me want to see the Lion and the Crab and that whole jungle of stuff I remembered you saying you could see up there. No wonder I couldn’t love you like I wanted to, like Jesus loves me and like he loves you and like you love me. No wonder I couldn’t count the blond hairs on your head or the brownish-reddish ones all over you face—I couldn’t even see anything up there in that sky but the big, stupid, dipper. And yet I could see God and I could see you and I could see us being together and being ok and being happy and me knowing how to love you and everything being right with the world forever and always. It was so much to see all at once that I didn’t quite know what to do or how to understand it or what to say to God or to the stars or to myself or to the you that always stays inside me even though the big you could never fit inside the little tiny me. I just stayed there and let it be and let it sink in and let God and the stars look down at me and let me feel so small and yet so big. Finally I got cold and the little tiny you couldn’t keep me warm like the real big you used to when we laid out there. I rolled over on my blanket to get up and go in and I saw the back porch swing where it all started. Not the stars and not God but me and you, where we sat and told each other whatever it was that we told each other that made everything so different and so goofy and wonderful that first of October when it was all so new and exciting and unknown and then I thought it seemed silly to see that same little swing still there after all this time just like those same stars and that same big God, still there watching everything and being a part of us whether we noticed or not. I folded up the blanket and felt warmer not being on that cold ground and I stood up and I felt like it all was going to be just fine and even beautiful as long as you were right there next to me and we were under God and the stars.
I went stargazing like I said I would. It’s really special to me, stargazing. I know we didn’t do it often, but it meant so much to me those times when we did. There was just something about looking up and feeling so small and being with you and knowing God could see us, lying all out in the open like that. Like He was looking down and shining straight at us and telling us to keep on shining too. Just like before, I went out the back door, blanket in hand, and walked out towards the graveyard, such an unlikely place to feel so alive. I didn’t go as far as we used to go since I was alone and a little bit more scared of the dark than I’d ever admit. I unfolded the blanket just enough so my little self could fit and I sat down, sniffling and shivering in the 65 degree weather on the first real day of spring. I know you think I’m a crybaby and I hate that, and I hate crying, really I do, but I won’t lie, I was crying so hard I couldn’t lay down at first I was shaking so much. But when I did, oh, the feeling! The feeling was so big I could taste it. Me and the sky and a dog barking off in the distance and that was all there was in the world but all of that was more than I could take in. The stars twinkled like I hadn’t seen them do in a good while and I felt bad for not noticing them often enough and I knew I’d been missing out on the show. I couldn’t move or even think about anything but God and how big He is and how crazy He is and how small I am and how He manages to still care about the hairs on my head. I got lost in the bigness of the sky and could hardly find myself for a while, and I didn’t even care. Then I saw it: the big dipper, the only constellation I could ever find on my own. I felt dumb not knowing what else was up there besides that silly dipper and then I thought what on earth is a dipper anyway and that made me laugh a little and it made me love you and it made me want to see the Lion and the Crab and that whole jungle of stuff I remembered you saying you could see up there. No wonder I couldn’t love you like I wanted to, like Jesus loves me and like he loves you and like you love me. No wonder I couldn’t count the blond hairs on your head or the brownish-reddish ones all over you face—I couldn’t even see anything up there in that sky but the big, stupid, dipper. And yet I could see God and I could see you and I could see us being together and being ok and being happy and me knowing how to love you and everything being right with the world forever and always. It was so much to see all at once that I didn’t quite know what to do or how to understand it or what to say to God or to the stars or to myself or to the you that always stays inside me even though the big you could never fit inside the little tiny me. I just stayed there and let it be and let it sink in and let God and the stars look down at me and let me feel so small and yet so big. Finally I got cold and the little tiny you couldn’t keep me warm like the real big you used to when we laid out there. I rolled over on my blanket to get up and go in and I saw the back porch swing where it all started. Not the stars and not God but me and you, where we sat and told each other whatever it was that we told each other that made everything so different and so goofy and wonderful that first of October when it was all so new and exciting and unknown and then I thought it seemed silly to see that same little swing still there after all this time just like those same stars and that same big God, still there watching everything and being a part of us whether we noticed or not. I folded up the blanket and felt warmer not being on that cold ground and I stood up and I felt like it all was going to be just fine and even beautiful as long as you were right there next to me and we were under God and the stars.