Like many women my age, I rarely sleep through the night, but to catch a shooting star, sleeplessness can be an advantage. Right now, the earth is hurling though the Persiad meteor shower, and I’ve been exploiting these nocturnal interruptions in attempts to see it.
Following a few nights of obstructive fog, last night finally was clear. I ventured out onto the deck to encounter a nearly full moon, whose silver light bleached out any faint photons from a shooting star. As I lingered to adjust my eyes in hopes of a glimpse, the pungent scent of a skunk came my way, and I thought, “Better go inside!” Perhaps I was threatening that critter’s turf, and I was hoping that turf wasn’t just below me.
As I tried to ignore the stench and get back to sleep, a red-tailed hawk started screeching. Then quickly came the piercing cry of what at first I feared to be a animal injured by the hawk, but it was so incredibly loud that it seemed unlikely to be a raptor’s prey. I finally concluded the howl must have come from a coyote somewhere in the midst; it was a three-note song, followed by a short report of barks. I crept back out to see if I could find the creature, but no luck.
I decided to linger and turned my attention back to the sky. Soon I spied a few meteors. Be it earth’s animals or cosmic debris, it is all amazing.
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