Add To The Beauty

Yes, I stole the title. But I like it.

Two nights ago I rode in a van full of friends, speakers blaring Modest Mouse, up to the top of a hill and stopped. We all piled out into the summer night that felt like it should be cold but was only pleasantly chilly, and we stood and sat and lay in the road and looked at the sky spread out above and around us. There was a meteor shower that night, which was lovely, but even more lovely than that was the quiet stillness and darkness of the night, the brightness of the stars, the closeness of friends, and the warm smell of cigar smoke in the air.

We looked at the pictures drawn across the sky by the clouds, and pointed out old friends like Cassiopea and the Big Dipper. We laughed and tickled each other, and we also sat still. We craned our necks backwards until we could see the curve of the sky around the earth.

There are few moments as beautiful as that one.