Bzzzzzz,

just a little.

When I left the fieldhouse this evening, on a tight schedule to get cleaned up before the first Spanish Film Series presentation of the semester, I walked out into brisk air. It made me slow down mid-stride and look up at the sky, to see if I could find what I'd been waiting for. I'd been waiting for a night like those I remember from autumns past in Pennsylvania; those nights coming home from the library, a practice that ran late, a looping suburban run. A night when all of the divergent jumbles of thoughts in my head get frozen for a moment, and I realize the power that something purely aesthetic can have over me.

Tonight was one of those evenings when the sky, cloudles and stardusted, seems to go on forever, infinitely deep and smooth. Tall pines and maples cut out backlit silouettes that frame my walk home across the quad, the lead overlay on my glassy sky: un cielo infinito so clear and bright, that starts off cerulean, passes imperceptibly into shades of royal blue, and on into a cobalt so dark and pure that you'd swear if you dropped it on kitchen tiles, it would shatter. As my gaze travels upwards, I can't help but shut up, tell myself to stop jabbering on inside my head about whatever trivial stress is bothering me, and look for that first star. Yadda yadda, puny feeling in relation to celestial universe, blah, blah, berate self for not looking up at sky more often. You know the drill.

My ghetto digital watch kept flashing the seconds, and I had to book it home in order to shower, feed myself something on the run, and be present to kick off the 'Serie.'

"Duh, I knew about that shit all along, no biggie." said the omniscient, infallible narrator with an artfully haughty raised eyebrow. And she went back to studying chemistry.