Make a wish
Yesterday was another of those days when I let myself get bogged down with a low mood and didn't do anything. I mean, I put on and hung out several washes and did some tidying, but I didn't do anything real. By evening time I was deep in apathy. Shirley came home and helped a bit (she even managed to get me out of the house briefly. It was like some kind of miracle!) but it didn't take long for me to settle back into doing nothing. The only thing that would have got me going again was watching the gemenid meteor shower, but sadly the clouds had other plans. Plans that involved them hanging around the sky above my house in vast numbers. During the night I found myself checking the window stupidly frequently to see if the clouds had cleared up. They hadn't. To be fair, it was pretty obvious from the start that they weren't going to, but I kept checking anyway, just in case. I eventually went to bed late (or possibly early, by that stage) with a nagging headache and brain full of cotton wool.
I was woken in the morning considerably earlier than I had intended by a shout from the kitchen. After I had checked that it was nothing serious (it wasn't) I looked out the back door. The following conversations went something like this:
"Star!!!"
"Yes Aoife, that's what happens in the mornings."
"No. Star! Not clouds: star! Meteors... not clouds... can watch!!"
"Oh"
(As you may have noticed, it takes a while for my speech centres to warm up after a sudden awakening)
Anyway, I had breakfast, chatted with Shirley until she left for work, and then fetched a big double duvet and a sleeping mat and went and lay in the back garden watching the stars. I didn't see anything other than stars, but just lying out there watching the sky light towards dawn was enough out of the ordinary to leave me feeling refreshed. I was debating going in when the dog next door began barking and the owner came out to bring it in and there was a lot of noise and comotion disturbing the previously still morning. Instinctively I turned towards the noise, and there it was, in the sky above the house next door. One single, solitary, shooting star.
By this stage the sky was bright and beginning to tint blue. The stars were weak and wan against the coming sun. This one wasn't. It seared across the sky like burning magnesium. There was nothing there before, and there was nothing there after, and even though it was exactly what I was expecting to see it took my breath away.
After that I bundled myself up and came indoors because, lets face it, it's cold outside before dawn. But I'm really glad I went out. Even one was worth it.
I didn't make a wish though. I mean, come on, what would I need to wish for?