While I was at home over Thanksgiving Break, my mother and I watched Evening. It's a beautiful movie about a woman who is on her deathbed, and she is remembering her first biggest "mistake" in a series of fitful, feverish dreams. It's a story of unrequited love, found love, and family bonding. But while I was watching it one plot struck me as poignant. The plot about Buddy the jilted lover/friend. When he and Ann first met in college, he insisted on claiming things for her. Her bird was a swift, her tree was a sycamore, he gave her a star, her stone was the onyx, her flower was the lilac. It wasn't so much that these things represented her in anyway, but Buddy wanted her to remember him when she saw those things, it was "as if he thought one day he might disappear," she comments to friend.After the movie was over, I went outside to enjoy the country stars. The night sky is different out there than it is in the city. I miss it so much when I'm at school. Back home, you can sit outside and feel like you are looking into the bottomless pit of space, unlike when you are in the city where the lights and the city vapors overpower the cosmic vibrations.
So I laid in the soft grass in our backyard and took in the smell of my home--the pine trees and nature. I closed my eyes for a moment and dreamed that I could stay there forever. When I opened them, I saw a shooting star. Shooting stars always delight me, because they make me feel as though I might have been the only person who saw the bean of light shoot across the sky, they make me want to tell the sky, "I saw you." As though maybe it was playing a game or how fast are my stars? Do they move so fast that the human eye cannot see?, or perhaps it's not that at all. Maybe it's the sky way of seeing if it still mattered, what if the sky wanted to fall at that moment, but sent a shooting star just before it did to see if anyone gasped. What if no one did? Would it fall? Probably not, this is all just child-like bantering.
Being outside reminded me of a time I had gone to a concert (this was when I was 17, many years ago, I'm not that into concerts), and the music was far too loud so I went outside to clear my head. There I was looking up at the stars when this boy came out of no where and began talking to me. He made small talk "what's your name? Mine is _____. " (the usual). Then he offered me a pinch from his funnel cake (it was a pastry), I took a small piece to be nice, and hoped he would go away. But he stayed, and we stood there in silence, just staring up at the stars. He was raised in the country, and I felt that he understood what it meant to star gaze. Then it happened, a single star shot across the sky. And he grabbed my hand, "whenever you see a shooting star, you must find a person near you and grab their hand and make a wish." We stood there hand in hand for what seemed like hours, like the world stood still and we just stared at one another and the stars in our eyes. "Don't you love tonight?" He said with a smile, "Good music, good food, good sky, and a pretty girl; life doesn't get any better." We stood there for the rest of the set and watched the sky. I think we both wanted to know what the other wished for. Sometimes, I wonder if he still remembers me, or what he wished for, or what it felt like to be there in that moment and do something impulsive like grab a strangers hand. I remember him, and I know that I wished for another star, and I remember what it felt like to hold hands with a stranger; it felt like home, if only for a moment.
