Swimming, Lake Aberdeen:
Defiance.
Weasel-belly
Freckle-hiding
This evening: off on the bike to the Treatment Center. It was beautiful out and it felt wonderful to bike. I had the most oppressive and dramatic soundtrack in my earbuds. Perfect.
Tonight: friends let us borrow a telescope, I’m pretty sure because they knew how much my son is into planets, the solar system, the universe. Exhausted after biking, working, and yoga, I’m inside reading while Ralph fools outside with the scope. Nels finds Mars and with the help of an app they locate Saturn. Ralph tells me you can see the rings on Saturn. The rings? What the fuck. I wrap myself up against the cold and out to the backyard where the telescope is set up. And I look. And I am stunned.
My son even more so. “Mama… it’s my dream. My dream came true. Please no one wake me. The best dream of my life!” My son is in tears.
I look again. I can’t believe it. It is so small yet precise, so incredibly beautiful, clear and crisp. You know we had an eclipse a while back and I knew it was up there and somehow I never looked up once, not all night. I don’t know what was wrong with me then. But tonight I’m crushed flat and I’m amazed and I won’t take things for granted as much as I did before.
I think it’s awesome that Nels is so excited about space, the universe, etc. I get that same thrill whenever I learn something new about it, or talk about planets/stars/etc.
I never did own a telescope, though, so the most I’ve seen is pictures. Maybe I’ll save up for one, and experience it myself.
That is beautiful – I want all of our lives to have moments like that regularly. Reading Nels words brought tears to my eyes <3
http://www.tas-online.org/
We happened to be visiting Mount Rainer’s Paradise Lodge in 2010 when the Tacoma Astronomical Society (TAS) was hosting a special fall planetary viewing. The National Park Service gave a symposium on dark skies, and then the TAS members had their scopes of varying sizes set up in the parking lot where they showed any interested lookers whatever they wanted to find in the skies. They also had fabulous laser pointers in “safety” colors. I think we saw the spot on Jupiter and could actually see different colors on the planet. It was amazing and such a blessed combination of community and science and wonder and amazement and nature. And there was no “ism” oppression to be found, btw- lots of patience for kids, accommodations for limited mobility and even special scopes for people with vision issues that magically digitally adjust some stuff inside so that you can look with or without your glasses and see well- which was perfect for me because my contact lenses were acting up.
Thanks for sharing Nels’ joy- and the picks of Lake Aberdeen too 🙂 I’ve never swum there- it looks fantastic! Grays Harbor has plenty of good things going for it.
Looking at the sky can make all of us feel small and full of wonder, no matter what our age. I remember as a kid we had a telescope (a Toys R Us special, not a good one) and we used it to look at a lunar eclipse. That was one of the coolest things I’ve seen in my life. Then when I was 14, I went to Wyoming to a Girl Scout camp in the middle of nowhere and I couldn’t believe how amazing the sky was; it was the first time I’d looked at it far enough away from lights to be able to see it. The stars felt so close that you could almost touch them and we could see the Milky Way. Truly beautiful to look at, so I can totally understand the tears. I’m so glad that Nels got to experience that kind of wonder and I hope that it only spurs him on to look more.