Monday, July 17th, was a new moon and I found myself out at the Great Sand Dunes National Park, preparing to hike in the last moments of daylight.
Around June or July last year, a friend and I started talking about getting out onto the dune field so he could get some shots of the Milky Way. As the true procrastinators that we are, it only took us a year to get around to it.
We hiked for a bit, looking for the perfect spot for him to set up his camera and get the right composition.
And then we waited.
I spread a blanket out on the sand and settled onto my back, wiggling and shifting to conform the sand to my body. As the stars twinkled into view, I was back in my childhood yard in the summertime, cool grass beneath my back and tickling my bare feet while the sky went from turquoise to blue, to navy. Stars blinked and twinkled, pinpricks of light against endless, dark velvet. If I stared long enough, I could imagine falling into the sky and forget the earth beneath my back.
Now it’s the smell of sand instead of warm grass, and the stars are thicker than they were in my childhood. The Great Sand Dunes National Park is a dark sky sanctuary, and light pollution is much less out here than the town of my childhood.
The Milky Way core shifted overhead in the sky, and I was, again, transported in memory to 1996 when I was twelve, and we were driving back to my grandparents’ house after spending the day with my aunt. My grandfather was gone; we were in Alberta for his funeral. It’s the first time I remember seeing the Milky Way, though it probably wasn’t. Each time the hazy blanket of stars appears in the sky, I feel a pang, a moment of longing. The sweet scent of prairie grass tickles my senses. Pipe tobacco and black licorice linger, reminding me it’s just a memory.
Sand tickles my throat, and a mosquito buzzes in my ear.
I want to reach upwards into the sky and float away, becoming lost in space, lost in stars.
Ink and Vein 