Diamonds

It’s hot here, and when the sun goes down we spend the evenings in the cockpit enjoying the cool breeze and listening to music or a podcast, or if we have wifi then we stream NPR and retreat into Facebook and online newspapers and Skype and email. This evening we’re expecting rain, so we’re sitting in the places we know will stay dry in a downpour. The sky’s been clouded over for a few hours but just now I looked up from today’s Wimbledon scores and the latest Paula Deen episode and nearly gasped with delight.

“Come with me!” I said to Jack. I stepped out on the side deck and waited while Jack unfolded himself from the preferred corner of the cockpit. When he finally joined me he looked up and grinned. Most of the sky was obscured by clouds and pitch black but right beside us the clouds had parted giving us a window to the kind of densely packed display of stars you only see on the darkest of nights. And here we are only two days after a beautiful bright full moon! We won’t see the moon tonight. There’s lightning on the horizon and the clouds are already closing the window in the sky, but for a few moments we could peek through our little local weather system to the heavens beyond.

I love this life.