Stars

Okay, so this was written for a random writing class our homeschool group is doing, and I figured I might as well put it on here as well. It was written the night of December 3rd.

It is almost 1:00 in the morning, it is below freezing, and I am sitting in my windowsill, with my legs dangling out of my window and my head resting against my windowsill.

It seems a logical place to be, doesn't it?

I'm not wearing socks, and my feet are getting cold, but I don't want to pull them in quite yet.

This may seem like some form of insanity to you, but believe it or not, I do have a purpose for sitting in my second-story window after midnight, with my pen tied to my wrist with a piece of string so I don't drop it, and my feet slowly turning into ice cubes.

I am looking at the stars.

There aren't too many visible tonight, but they seem all the more beautiful for their scarcity. Tiny pinpricks of light in a vast ocean of darkness. I'm not very good with constellations, but I can pick out Orion's Belt from where I sit, three stars in a line.

Retreating now from the window, shutting it firmly and looking at my feet, which feel more than a little numb, I smile, because I can't think of too many others who would sit half outside just to see the stars more clearly. Especially not in December. I turn the lights off and grab my headlamp, so I can write and look at the stars at the same time.

I think about the constellations, named after the myths of the Ancient Greeks. Pegasus, Hercules, Orion, Draco, Capricorn. I recognize very few of them, but their names drift through my mind when I look at the night sky.

As I look at the stars, I can't help thinking of spaceships and Lightsabers and people with green blood and pointy ears, and I can't help smiling again. Obviously, I'm not the first to be enthralled by the stars. To wonder what lies beyond and if we'll ever go there. The stars seem to represent an adventure just waiting to happen, a mystery yet to be unlocked.

But I look to the stars as silent watchers; sentinals who know every hope, wish and dream ever uttered, keeping guard in the dark hours of the night when everyone-including me-should be asleep.

It is perhaps when I look at the stars that I am most filled with awe and wonder. On a clear night, you can see millions of stars, glittering like so many gems set on a vast piece of velvet. They seem peaceful and serene, never deviating from their courses, never going astray. They are beautiful in their silent tranquility.

I've often wondered what it would be like it there were no stars. If the moon drifted across the night sky alone, but I can never quite imagine it. To never be able to see the stars...even the thought makes me tense.

The stars seem to represent the very hopes and future of the world. They hold the promise of life in their bright, countless numbers. When one looks to the stars, they can feel the amazement that so many people lose as they grow older, they can believe that hardships will end, they can know that if they only try hard enough, if they only reach high enough, they can touch the sky.