Mary van Balen

PHOTO:

At 12:30a.m. I slipped on my long, almost to the ankles down coat and stepped outside into the very cold night. I had not planned on staying up to view the Geminid meteor shower. The cloudy afternoon sky left over from the first real snow the day before had showed no sign of clearing, but sometime between 5:30 and 9, it did.

The neighborhood was quiet. No cars driving by to crunch the icy streets. Christmas lights from a few houses glowed brightly against white snow-flocked bushes and trees. I remembered childhood Christmases celebrated in this same neighborhood. Our Jewish neighbors had four children. Debbie told me years later that she and Julian stayed up on Christmas Eves and peered down through their second floor window into our living room where Mom and Dad were decorating our tree. She wished for a Christmas tree. I had wished for the eight-day gift giving of Hanukah. Read More 

LINKS Sky and Telescope: The magazine's sky observation news Spaceweather: Information on all types of "sky events"


Photo: Pierre Martin, Ottawa, Canada


After having a birthday dinner with my sister and brother-in-law, I drove out of town to spend the night with a friend who lives in the country. She has an unusual home built of concrete and partially covered by a grassy mound of earth that forms part of the roof. That is where we would spend the night: meteor watching.

The Orionid meteor shower is the result of the earth moving through the tail of Halley’s Comet. This year the show coincided with a cloudless autumn night and Melanie and I were going to enjoy it.

She made some popcorn and I opened a bottle of wine to share. We talked until 12:30am came around, and when it did, we walked upstairs and out the double doors that led onto the roof. The sky was magnificent. Even without meteors, the sight was breathtaking. The absence of light from a big city enabled us to enjoy tiny bits of light that covered the sky like luminous dust, a backdrop for familiar constellations. We sat in silence, our necks bent back against the cold aluminum frames of the lawn chairs, waiting.

“I think we might be a little early,” I said after a half-hour had passed. Some clouds were beginning to move in.

“Why don’t we go to bed for a few hours and get up around 4:30?” Melanie suggested.

We did, and when the alarm rang I slowly pulled myself out of bed, put on a jacket and hat Melanie had laid out for me and walked back out on the roof. She was already there, and her dog, Maddie, resting at her feet, looked up at me with eyes that seemed to say, “What are you two doing on the roof at 5am?”

I settled into the chair and Melanie handed me a blanket.

“I love these big old wool blankets.”

So do I. Unlike newer synthetic ones, their weight as well as their warmth is a comfort. I looked at the sky. Orion had moved and was standing straight, looking as if he were guarding the house. I smiled. Orion was my friend, the one I looked for when I went to bed late or got up on a sleepless night. No matter where I was, he was there, a nighttime companion.

Only a few minutes passed before we saw our first meteor, streaking across the sky from Orion’s direction. They came every few minutes. I thought about the grassy roof under my feet and the small planet that held us. We were a speck, hurtling through space and pushing our way through the dust and debris of a comet’s tail. I pulled the blanket tighter.

“It’s colder out here,” Melanie said.

I looked up. Not a cloud in sight. We marveled at the difference clouds make, holding heat closer to our planet.

Eventually more time passed between meteor sightings. We were colder. Unwrapping our blankets and folding up the chairs we made our way back into the house. Melanie brewed hot tea and served toast slathered with jam she had made from berries that grew wild on her property. We shared a pear picked from a tree in her yard.

Earth. Sky. Friendship. Bountiful Presence. It was more grace than I could hold.  Read More