Both Sides of the Fence
A Tosa resident since 1991, Christine walks the dog, raises kids, cooks but avoids housework, writes and reads, and works too much. A Quaker and
The Aging Maven, she has been known to stand on both sides of the political and philosophic fence at the same time, which is very uncomfortable when you think about it. She writes about pretty much whatever stops in to visit her busy mind at the moment. One reader described her as "incredibly opinionated but not judgmental." That sounds like a good thing to strive for!
Missing the night sky
By Christine McLaughlin
Monday, Aug 13 2007, 04:12 PM
Maybe your vacations at the lake are full of water sports. I'm more the languid type--lazy, if you prefer. Some of the best parts of mine this weekend were spent flat on my back on a picnic table watching the Bayfield County sky.
Cable, Wisconsin is just three degrees latitude north and four degrees longitude west of Wauwatosa, but the sky there is like a black mirror lit by a thousand points of light, all different sizes and colors, and you can still see the Milky Way smeared behind them.
I had forgotten. Here we have a dryer lint sky, dull and fuzzy. There’s a handful of stars sometimes, but it’s easy to forget to look up to see them.
Saturday friend Linda and I got home to Bill's Lake Lodge late, or what amounts to late for middle aged women. We’d spent the evening in a half exposed basement that was the local watering hole, one of those smoky places with fish mounted on the wall and communal bowls of jalapeno peppers on the bar. Some of the “native wildlife” there were people she’d known back when all of us were shinier and newer. We talked about birthdays and Birkebeiners, God and road grading. Old times. Bar talk.
I was tired but went out to the dock to say good night to the lake. Suddenly, light started rolling across the sky. There was a cloud bank, but it was narrow and the light flashed and danced above and below, moving along a third of the facing horizon.
Northern lights.
The show went on for most of an hour. Talk about a nightcap!
We got home Sunday, stopping only to sample the pieman’s wares at the Norske Nook in Osseo. Traffic was bumper to bumper between Portage and Madison, and it was dark (or what passes for dark in the city) by the time I reached Wauwatosa.
I’d heard it was the peak night for the Perseid meteor showers, but you wouldn’t have known it. The show was hidden by the clouds -- and too much light from everywhere.
It takes imagination to see what’s really there, behind the way things seem to be.
