Dear Orion

Dear Orion,

I write to you now from my small place on Earth. I write with shaking hands and crumbling soul.

As I stood on the cold street in the early hours of the morning, your shining belt caught my weary eye. We watched each other in silence and a thousand questions flooded my mind- questions that I could never ask aloud, for fear of appearing strange for confiding in a being so majestic and abstract.

So this is why I write- in hopes that you will see my flawed words that I address to your perfect being of a self.

Question one- Is it as quiet as they say it is in space? It’s awfully loud down here and I’m tired of all the noise. I’d love for the world to be still for a moment. I’d love to feel what it is to be calm.

Question two-Do your stars keep you warm? Another thing I’ve been told- space is cold. I’ve thought on it for awhile and I’ve come to think that your stars keep you toasty and warm, like a summer camp fire or a warm blanket. (I have a blanket. I spend many hours under it. Sometimes crying. Sometimes just taking time to block out the world. Perhaps if I one day become a set of stars, my blanket will follow me.)

Question three-Is it nice to just watch? I like observing but I hate to take part. Do you spend your days and nights watching lives of the people below? Does it ever get boring? I doubt it could. So much changes and so much happens I simply don’t see how you could find such a performance boring- from an objective perspective at least. (Subjectively, it’s easy to get tired of the chaos. A seat in the audience sounds rather nice.)

Question four-Is it nice to be free? You have two obligations: to sit proudly in the sky and to shine your light into the darkness below. I assume after the first few hundred years, these tasks become as natural as breathing. You’re free just to be. You have no worries- no pain.

Question five-Do you ever cry? I feel that it would be hard to be sad in such a utopia- and yet I ask anyway, as I would hate to be confined to another life with tears. You spend your days dancing among the stars. You spend your nights lighting the world for people below. Unlike you, I cry a lot. I spend my days under layers of stress and my restless nights under layers of blankets, reminding myself of all who I have failed. (Still, I prefer the night. It’s quiet and there are no expectations. I can dive into the corners of my wandering mind or I can sleep and spend a few blissful hours oblivious to the pain of the world).

Question six-It must be nice to live in peace. This one isn’t a question- it’s a statement. The constant stress and worrying of Earth is hard to take. Everyone needs something of you. Everyone can be disappointed by you. There are more chances to fail than there are to succeed. To spend your days with such little obligation is a gift that you are blessed to receive. To be loved by so many, yet truly known my so few, and I phenomena that I wish to feel. (No one knows your flaws and downfalls, yet they all still see your beauty.)

I hope that one day I will join you. No worries, no tears. We could talk perhaps- not through sound but through the pulsing of our stars- for space is quiet and to ruin that would be a sin. Perhaps we wouldn’t talk. We would keep to ourselves and live in the comfort of our own thoughts- thoughts not of fears and failure, but thoughts of the tiny people down below, the sparkling stars around us, and the simplicity of life in the night sky.

For now I will gaze at you through the window above my stiff bed or from the dewy grass in the early hours of the morning, and I will hope that you hear my thoughts and feel my pain. I will hope that you are clearing a spot in the sky where I will one day find peace and where I will one day come to spend all of eternity.

Dearest Orion- I wish you luck in your coming life of relaxation, and for now I ask of you only three things. Kiss your dog for me, tell him that he’s beautiful, and shine your light down as I stumble through the darkness of the world below.