A second look from the rooftop - a stargazing adventure

Looking back on my first year of Science-Fiction-Create

This post was originally for subscribers only, but I wanted to share it with everyone. It’s one of my favorites. In it, I took an intimate look at a father-son evening on our roof - gazing at the heavens. The stars, and all that unimaginable expanse, make us feel small. And yet, somehow, looking into the night sky connects us. It’s a powerful thing to peer out into the cosmos. Even more so holding the hand of a child.

“Keep looking up,” as Jack Horkheimer always said.

From the vantage of our roof

A Saturday night, stay-at-home adventure, to reconnect with the stars

Originally shared May 18, 2020

Approx. 680 words; 3 minutes read time

This last weekend, well after dark, my seven-year-old son and I climbed up on our rooftop. We live in a mid-century subdivision in northern San Diego County. Here, the houses are single-story with low, sloping roofs. Ours is an ideal perch to do a little people watching from afar and a great place to take in the night sky. It's also the perfect stay-at-home escape during the quarantine.

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My son digs the adventure of climbing up there. It's a roof, after all, and not something the average kid gets to play around on. We are careful. And ours is relatively safe as roofs go - it has a flat section over our sunroom that makes for a perfect access point. In the event of a slip, it's not far off the ground anyway. I wouldn't want to fall, mind you, but it wouldn't be that bad. The experience is a calculated risk and well worth it - he loves being there, and so do I.

We went up about 9:00 PM this time, and on a Saturday, so our community was still hopping. It surprised me all the house parties going on despite social distancing orders. Occasionally a loud car or motorcycle raced down a nearby street. We saw a few people out walking their dogs, and a random cat crept up and over fences. All were oblivious to us up on our roof.

People watching aside, the real show is up in the sky. Even on overcast nights, we can see a lot. This evening, all the usual suspects were out. Venus was bright as always, just before it set over the horizon. And we could make out Ursa Major and Ursa Minor - a.k.a. The Big and Little Dippers. Polaris, the "North Star," at the tip of Ursa Minor, was visible too.

We sometimes use one of those phone apps to identify more stars, but not this night. Instead, we peered with our eyes alone, into the darkness as countless other humans before us.

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We stared up into the black for a good long while. Occasionally my son shared a tidbit of knowledge he'd acquired. "Planets are much closer and smaller than stars, but they look brighter," he declared. We talked a bit about astronomy, but mostly we quietly watched.

After some time looking up, he wanted a snack, so I left him on the flat section while I ducked inside. When I returned with some cheese crackers, I found him lying on his back, one knee cocked up, and a hand behind his head. He had been staring into the sky the whole time.

"Papa, look at those three stars," he said, pointing to the northwest. "They look like a 'C.'" He shaped his hand into the sign for a "C" as he talked.

At his age, he's not thinking much about the vast distances and numbers of stars in the cosmos. Instead, he sees shapes and imagines these to be representations of things he knows. That will change over time as he starts to grasp better what lies out there in the universe. But hopefully, it will always capture his imagination as it does now.

We lingered a bit longer, enjoying our snack and the fresh air. The town noises began to subside as it got later, and we could hear the coyotes howling in the distance. Soon my son grew tired and asked to go inside. So we packed up our stuff and climbed back down together.

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Sleep that night was more restful for us both. Our escape onto the roof was a reprieve. It helped me shed the burdens of life for a moment, and my son seemed calmer than usual after being up there. Too much time in the house can make anyone a bit stir crazy. So it's lovely to do something ever-so-slightly risky like climbing up on the roof. Up there, at night, we reconnect with ourselves and the universe.

Until next time. Science. Fiction. Create.

JRC