Can you see the stars?

So a warning to the parents out there with their youngins away from home, this entry is a bit bittersweet.

For the past month or so, I have been on the run every weekend, either for the basketball tourney, or for a business jaunt into Chisinau. Today I stayed in bed reading until almost 9 though, and then got up to go play in the kitchen. Split Screen Sadness by John Mayer was on repeat as I made breakfast for my host family this morning. Granted, he isn’t Lennon, but even less deified artists can sometimes hit on the perfect words for the moment. I’m a sucker for song lyrics. I don’t know how I can be so blasé about poetry in general, but hang on ever word in a good song

A little back-story before I give you the lyrics that kept my brain mulling things over all morning. My family has a great tradition of keeping track of each other in little ways. I always liked how the homepage on my parent’s computer popped up with the weather reports for the various locations of their far-flung boys. No matter where they were. My location of course constantly changing up and down the Atlantic seaboard.

Before leaving I gave them a CD with this song, and the following lyrics “I check the weather wherever you are, cause I want to know if you can see the stars tonight”.....
While I never really had the access to the internet that would permit checking up on everyone, many a night in the woods or standing on a ship, I would look up and wonder if my family and the many friends I have been so fortunate to spend time with could see the same wash of iridescent pinpricks that I was marveling at.

Maybe there is something about the stars, and the ability of their light to touch so many. I remember being constantly frustrated in college by the street lighting, and not being able to see the heavens. Perhaps the reason for my irritation was that my connection had been severed. That may be a bit to mystic a thought for most folks, but as reality is really just our own interpretation of the world around us, I like to think that this connection exists.

So, to all my friends and family, from the Pacific Northwest, to the Midwest, to the Florida Keys and on up the whole Atlantic coast, I miss every darn one of you, and I can’t wait to see you in a year and a half (or sooner should you be flying to Europe any time soon). I know I am horrible at keeping up with folks, but if you haven’t heard from me in a while that doesn’t mean you are forgotten, or any less important in my life’s history.
If need be, check out the first stars of twilight back in the states. They are the ones that are slipping towards the horizon here whenever I take the early morning bus into the capitol, or head out for my run a dawn.