Spilled Milk
My childhood home was divorced from the stars. The moon was the only luminous object I recall orbiting above, following me home as I gazed out the window of my dad’s midnight blue, Nissan Sentra hatchback. Stargazing meant camping—far from home, in unfamiliar territory, as if we’d traveled to another planet where the night sky was just as spectacular as the day. Decades later, I can still gaze for hours, certain that the more I focus on any given star, the stronger the beings in that galaxy will feel my yearning for connection.
What does it mean to grow up in a starless home, where the only bodies of light are suspended on metal poles above the asphalt, or screaming down in helicopter spotlights? Where the blinking red dots of an airplane are the only opportunity to connect with faraway spirits. What trauma—being severed from the place I originated—to confine reality to a box of right angles, where the light show is restricted to one dull source on the ceiling.
What does it mean that my four-year-old son can identify Orion's belt? What is the measure of this generational healing—that he has never known a night of light pollution, where the only potential barrier to seeing stars is cloud cover? How will he unfurl being fully exposed to the spilled milk of our galaxy on a nightly basis?
The stars are looking back, just as intent on connection as I am. My son doesn't need to squint his eyes and struggle with all his might to reach through the ether. He knows in his body that he is home.