Under Orion’s Quiet Light

Privately I mark the start of the end of the year when Orion starts to rise in the East.

When I can walk outside at 8 PM and see Orion squared in the South.

At this time of year it is always where I start and finish each evening, a few minutes just existing with it through the eyepieces.

I’m at the point where I wonder how many more times I will see it rise and set, and that it will continue rising and setting long after I am even a memory.

That doesn’t take anything away, if anything it makes it more beautiful.

It was the first time that I had ever gotten a raise and the first time I actually have a few dollars in my pocket that didn’t disappear the moment I got paid. I had been diligently saving for a future, for that moment when opportunity would present itself, and I would be ready.

Nothing had derailed me from that, but with this raise I wanted to buy something.

Not something frivolous, not an experience, but something physical, something tangible.

A pair of binoculars.

Not just any binoculars, big binoculars, astronomy binoculars.

Japanese glass.

Orion telescopes was at the top of their game at the time, and I found the perfect pair.

The excitement of the moment when it arrived, the first time I used it that night.

What I was able to see.

Since then not a week goes by that I don’t step outside in the dark for a few minutes to look around.

And when not in use, they sit on my desk as a physical memory.