Look up at the stars at night.

“I didn’t intend on stargazing. I mean, I’ve done it before, but being visually impaired for so long never really gave me a chance to appreciate the stars. Whenever I looked up at the night sky in the past, all I could really see clearly was the moon. The rest of the sky was just a random assortment of black, grey, purple, and blue. And then on Christmas eve, while I was mindlessly walking outside our house, something urged me to look up. And I then I saw it. The magnificent blanket of stars. I don’t remember much of anything else from that night, but I can still vividly recall how looking at the stars made me feel. I remember the awe, the wonder of how anything could look so enchanting. I remember just looking up for several more minutes, taking it all in. They were like infinite twinkling lights hanging from the heavens. They always said that looking up at the stars humbles you, makes you acutely aware of how tiny you are in this universe. I never understood that until then.”

“But my eyes were really opened when I looked up at the stars in a remote part of Scotland with no villages or towns nearby – so no light pollution – and for the first time in my life I could actually see the Milky Way. Far from being a chocolate bar, it’s actually a side-on view of the galaxy we’re a part of and there are so many stars in them you couldn’t count them (I couldn’t count up to a billion back then). The feeling of wonder I had just standing staring out into infinity is the sort of thing you can only experience as a child. I was open minded, full of imagination, wondering what the view was like from these far flung places and wishing I could travel between the stars exploring in a vaguely Star Trek way (but without the skin-tight uniforms).”

“It mostly rained however I had two clear nights to myself and I cant tell you how lucky I was in those two nights. I enjoyed myself a lot and learnt and also thought quite a lot. [...] I knew it was a pre-night to the Perseid peak but I had no idea that I will see the shower with my naked eye and that it would be that much. I saw the shower with my boy in my lap who would point out at every flash with excitement.”