Recently, at mid-afternoon on
a rainy day, I looked up at the cloud-burdened sky and missed the
stars, truly missed them. I felt the kind of wistful pangs that you
might when you remember a long-gone but beloved grandparent, or a
teenage sweetheart who misunderstood you long ago.
I knew
they were up there — the stars, I mean. I knew they would
probably be studding the skies above the next night; forecasters
were calling for clearing weather. But the truth is, it
wasn’t star-studded nights I was longing for. What I missed
were gauzy blankets and veils of stars — the very warp and
weft of the universe.
I’ve seen this fine fabric
twist and wrap through Sonoran Desert skies. If you have ever spent
the night outdoors in some remote part of the desert, you’ll know
what I’m talking about. A little-known canyon in Arizona just a
stone’s throw from Mexico is my remote site of choice.
It
was nearly a decade ago, when I slept outdoors in that canyon for
the better part of a week, that I discovered this intricate night
tapestry. That’s a lie. Who could sleep? The quicksilver light from
above bathed everything. The world was new. Even though I was
bone-tired after long days of scrambling in that wild country, I
struggled to keep my eyes shut.
I wanted to dance under
that light. I wanted to leap into it. That kind of light touches
you, changes you. Sometimes it seems to call to you. I think that’s
what happened on that rainy day. I heard the call from afar, and
wondered what the stars could want from me.
Life has
pulled me back East. Now I live within sight of one of East
Tennessee’s primary sources of pollution. The twin stacks of the
Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston coal-fired plant stand
like giant goalposts on the horizon. Their emissions include
mercury — the herons on Watts Bar Lake can’t read or heed the
don’t-eat-the-contaminated-fish warnings — and deadly
microparticulates that clog tiny but important passages in our
lungs.
The coal-fired plant has improved our quality of
life in many ways, but it is a major contributor to the unhealthy
haze that mars the views in and around the Great Smoky — or as the
locals say, Great Smoggy — Mountains. It also is a
contributor to another kind of pollution. It fuels the power that
we switch on to light up the night and, unintentionally, hide the
stars.
In most of this country, we are glaringly reckless
in our littering with light pollution. Here in the East, we are
largely ignorant of what we have lost as a result. I will not pit
the beauty of my eastern mountains against my western desert
— lush green hills versus canyons built of ash and sand;
rhododendron versus cliff rose. I love them both. I have chosen
both. Geographical bigamy is not a crime.
But when it
comes to stars, the West is the winner.
Even small towns
in Arizona have taken steps to shield lighting and help keep in
sight the starry blankets that comfort people like me. For me and
my friends out West, the night skies were to be celebrated and
lingered under. Meteor showers were like unofficial holidays.
We’d mark them on our calendars, and when the long awaited
events arrived, grab blankets, flasks and thermoses and head for
darkness.
We’d recline in groups — every head
pointed in a different direction, every perspective different.
Sometimes, quiet, thoughtful conversations emerged from the dark.
More often, the night simply dissolved into choruses of
ooooohhs and ahhhhhs.
Tired faces gave away the most exuberant celebrants the
next morning. Even among strangers, we recognized each other.
Recently, under cloudy skies, I sat in front of the glow of a
computer screen and longed for the stars. I looked up my favorite
major meteor showers: the Perseids of August, the Leonids of
November.
I won’t see them — not this year —
but I take comfort knowing that someone will. As I scrolled through
the text, my thoughts drifted to the heavens, and then West, to my
comrades and our simple, starry celebrations. And with the gloom of
gray skies as heavy as ever outside my window, I prayed that my
friends would always have stars in their eyes.
Terri Likens is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a
service of High Country News (hcn.org). She
recently moved from Arizona to Tennessee.
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