Looking for Orion

When I was little, somewhere between the age of old-enough-to-remember and second grade, my dad took me out stargazing.

We didn't go very far from home - we just went to the backyard.  But we stood there, and we looked up at the sky, and my dad taught me how to pick out constellations.  The big dipper, the little dipper, all the usual.  But the one I most liked, and the only one I can still find to this day, was Orion.  The Hunter.

It's possible that the reason why I liked Orion so much was that it was the only one I actually saw.  I don't particularly remember any "aha!" moment with the others, but I vividly remember the pride that I felt upon locating the three stars that make up Orion's belt, and being able to put together the rest of the picture from there.  After all, a single finger pointing at the expanse of the universe isn't the most accurate of navigation methods.  Being able to see for myself what my dad was pointing at was a big deal.

For years since then, Orion is the only constellation that I have been able to locate with any degree of regularity.  I remember being able to see it from the driveway of our new house when we moved the next year, and the constellation remained with me as I grew up.  I didn't acknowledge at that time that Orion was becoming a sort of constant companion to me.  Constellations aren't exactly a frequent conversation topic among adolescents these days.

After I graduated from high school, I entered into a six-year period without stars.  Night skies dotted with celestial lights gave way to the hazy glow that hangs around big cities.  Lexington, Paris, and Dallas all hid the stars from me.  There were intervals within these years, of course, when I was met with a starry night, typically on camping trips or during late-night travel.  But those moments were filled with a more general awe than any intentional picking-out of constellations, which became lost in the unending canvas of stars spread before me.

So I lost Orion for awhile.  But when I moved here, to Murfreesboro, I found him again.

It wasn't until a few months ago, when I was getting my bags out of my car after a late work night, that I looked up and saw Orion shining dimly above my head.  In that moment, I had a flashback to that night nearly twenty years ago, when my dad pointed out the three-starred belt to me.  Missing my family dearly in a new town for a new job, I felt tears well up in my eyes at the sight of a familiar friend.

Since then, every time I find myself outside at night, I take a second to pause and find Orion.  It usually doesn't take more than a couple seconds.  It seems like, in looking for Orion, I'm looking for that which anchors me to my past.

Lately, I've come to see myself as always looking for Orion.  Not in the sense that I am looking to live in the past, but in the sense that I'm looking for simplicity.  I long for the peacefulness that I find within this small memory.  Simplicity, when the volume is turned down, the media is unplugged, and I can escape the barrage of metaphorical and audible noise which too often overrns my daily life.

Perhaps you know what I'm talking about.  Perhaps you too have a memory of such a moment, a memory so old it's more like a fleeting vision, that links you immovably to the very core of who you are.  I think everyone must have such a memory, though some people may not have discovered theirs just yet.

Now I go looking for Orion.  I don't just find him in the night sky anymore.  I find Orion on a hike through the woods.  I find Orion in films that embody the idealism of youth.  I find Orion in music that, for whatever reason, reaches within me to strike my soul.  I find Orion in hot chocolate and a warm blanket, and in long-lost favorite books pulled from used-book-store shelves.  And of course, I find Orion in the stars that gaze down from the heavens each night.

In the weeks to come, I'll be sharing these moments of simplicity and quiet beauty with you.  Now that I've gone looking for Orion with intention, I happen upon such moments everywhere.  I hope that, in hearing my stories, you will be able to share in the simple pleasures that they bring.

Because it's much easier to find Orion when you are actually looking for him.