My Wish On The Stars

I went outside for a few minutes. It is partly cloudy tonight. I walked out to the middle of the driveway and looked up at the sky.

It was dark, we have no lights in the driveway so when the flashlight went out for the first few seconds it was pitch black until my right eye adjusted. It is cold outside tonight, only ten degrees Celsius (50 Fahrenheit), but I did not notice it even dressed in shorts, a t-shirt and my bright blue foam clogs.

Through my right eye, the one with pigmentary glaucoma, I could make out the stars and a cloud mass passing overhead. I can't see the detail of the stars, I haven't been able to since about 6th grade (glasses in 7th grade). They are just fuzzy points of light.

I remember the last time I could see the stars. No, not the specific date, and rather it was the first time I guess that I couldn't see them. I had my new glasses but I had lost that clarity I once had of the moon and stars. I remember it was winter. I was tobogganing with a few friends and we walked up to the top of the Centennial Park hill. I looked up at the clear night sky full of stars and all I could see were fuzzy white spots. I have since wondered if my eyesight was ever as clear and exact as I once believed it to be. I will never know for certain.

Through my left eye, the one with the oil bubble in it from a second surgery (scleral buckle) to repair a detached retina, the night sky appeared brighter. The clouds were whiter, the sky a slight light glow, and the stars, though slanted off to the side and watery, were a little bit brighter. I could see the Big Dipper which appeared above the house, though I know it is much farther away, the whole length of it.

I picked a cluster of stars and made a wish. Yes, more than one star. You can't be too careful picking just one star these days, you might pick the one least likely to grant your wish. Yes, I am being silly but you just never know. We are all made of stars after all, you never know who might be listening or watching.

Peaceful and quiet, no sounds of humans with little respect for others, no cats scurrying about in restless spring fever, no dogs barking and whining at the wind. I could hear a bird chirping quietly somewhere, perhaps maybe a baby bird not ready to go to sleep in the nest yet?  I almost wandered off down the lane out to the road for a walk but I am hardly dressed for such an excursion at one thirty in the morning.

All I desire for this year is to have my vision back to "normal" and be able to, see the stars at night, even as blurry little points of light, once again.