Late Night Party with Rock Stars!
It sounded a little bit like thunder and a lot like danger. In the inky darkness, my eyes couldn’t make out where the clatter was coming from, but it felt like it was headed straight for us. I quickly grabbed my son and tried to decide if I would have to haul him to safety or stay still, hoping the racket would pass. We had gone out for a walk on a sultry summer night. We weren’t far from our house, less than a mile, but it felt like the country because we were near an open field. Fear turned to awe when we realized the noise was a large herd of spooked deer crossing the pavement a few yards in front of us running towards the safety of the nearby river. It was magical.
The event charged the evening with excitement. We talked about the deer while looking up at the bright stars. Anything seemed possible that night. That’s when my son asked me to show him what a shooting star looked like.
Mothers are magic, especially when children are young. Parents can do anything. Unfortunately, the deer would be the only thing we would see that night. Nevertheless, I didn’t forget the wish nor the star needed for it.
* * *
“Do you want to go see some shooting stars tonight?” I whispered in my 8-year-old’s ear. It was after 10 p.m., and he was still awake reading a book. The excitement in his eyes was answer enough.
“You’ll have to put on your jacket over your pajamas, hat and some shoes,” I instructed him. We loaded up the car with downy sleeping bags, folding lounge chairs and headed north, away from the city’s lights. The annual Geminid Meteor Shower was supposed to peak on December 13 and 14th, just days after a glorious full moon and lunar eclipse. The best viewing time was supposed to be between 2:00-3:00 in the morning, but the conditions were not going to be ideal regardless due to the bright moon. If we left sooner, rather than later, we had a chance to see a few meteors before the moon rose too high in the sky.
About five miles outside of North Platte, I took a left onto Highway 97. There the hills are higher and the houses fewer. Driving into the darkness, I yelled toward the backseat, “I just saw one!” Just beyond the headlights and the highway, a faint streak of light shot from the stars for the briefest of moments. I thought to myself that the night’s impromptu plans might actually work.
I pulled over onto a turn-around and set up the lounge chairs in the gravel road. I tucked my child into a sleeping bag, and told him to stare at the stars. He would have to be patient; magic takes time. You couldn’t have asked for a better Nebraska night. Despite being December, the air was crisp but not bitter cold. The stars were diamond sharp in the clear night sky. We did our best to work around the moonlight. I faced the chairs away from the moon rising in the east; looking to the west, we waited.
“Mom, there’s one,” he pointed to an airplane’s red and green lights slowing making its way across the star-field. I corrected his mistake, and told him a shooting star is fast, and looks like a line of light.
Just then, it happened.
“Mom! Mom! Mom! I saw one! Did you see it?”
I had. It was quick and faint, but definitely a meteor. My son’s first shooting star.
We talked for an hour under the evening sky. Sometimes we would see the same shooting star and sometimes only one of us we catch a glimpse before it faded away. Equal enthusiasm was given to the science of meteorites as to Martians attacking cavemen and dinosaurs millions of years ago. I hummed Silent Night and he sang Batman Smells to the tune of Jingle Bells. Our conversation was peppered with shooting stars racing overhead and gloriously punctuated with a real beauty–a meteor that astounded us. We “oohhed” as the bluish ball streaked across the starry sky as its golden tail chased after it. When it nearly touched the night horizon, we awarded it “Best of Show.”
On the Nebraska plains, the prairie grass danced in the moonshadows. In the quiet, he and I watched the twinkling lights waiting for the universe to set off one more firework. Out of the black of the night, I heard the reward for a promise fulfilled.
“I love you, Mom.”
* * *
It was nearly midnight when I tucked my son into bed and wrote a note to his teacher explaining that he might be tired during class. I didn’t mention that we had stayed up late on a school night to hang out with rock stars.
