Wait by M83

What’s a song you’d want to hear while stargazing?

I’ve always been mildly fascinated with space, with the moon, with the wonder of the stars. I can’t recall where it started, or when, but as my life settled down I started to look up more and more often.

One particular night, not long after my Dad died, I remember being outside with the dogs. It was a crisp cloudless autumn night, a chill in the air, and above me the moon was large, not quite full, and I stood there for a while just looking up.

We are such small specks of dust in the cosmos. On that scale what we do, or don’t do, doesn’t matter. My existence, my being, my actions, will not even be recognised.

I find that both humbling and a little scary, that we are so very small, yet part of something so beautifully vast we can’t fully comprehend it. I’m always minded of what astronauts tend to say once they’ve been in space, orbiting our planet, that how from up there it’s clear we are one human race. The implication is clear, we must do better.

So I stand in quiet contemplation of my life, of my dreams, and let the enormity of space, the shimmering stars, be my judge. It’s a very calming feeling, I’ve found.