STAR LIGHT, STAR BRIGHT

by Ellie Pierson

When I was nine, I was sent to the local summer camp for a week while my mom was in France with her friends. I cried myself to sleep almost every night, and I remember being so cold in my sleeping bag on the one night we slept under the stars. I thought we would be sleeping in the cabin the whole week. My sleeping bag was not meant for a cold June night on a large field, sleeping on nothing but a tarp. I cried that night, too. I was cold. I missed my mom. But, I was calmed by the stars. They looked right back at me. I kept blinking until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore.

My girlfriend and I go camping a lot. She’s obsessed with nature. It’s something I love about her.

We met at summer camp when I was 16, and she was 17. My parents and sister walked me to the cabin I would be staying in for the next two weeks. The older campers got, the less they wanted top bunks. I was one of the last people to arrive, so of course, there were only top bunks left. We looked around the cabin at all of the bunks that were claimed, trying to get a read on the other campers based on luggage alone. I saw a ukulele case on a bottom bunk. My mom read the luggage tag. How do you feel about bunking with Claire? Sure. Never met a Claire I haven’t liked. We went outside the cabin, my parents and sister said goodbye, and I met Claire.

Sometimes I can see my heartbeat in the stars. The veins in my eyes pound with each pump of blood. Throbbing with each twinkle of starshine.

At 8 years old, the outdoors were my playground. My older sister and I grew up playing with our toys outside. I’m pretty sure my dad has accidentally mowed over a Barbie or two from my sister’s negligence. Being outside meant play time, it meant yard work, it meant headaches and sunburns, but it meant joy and the full body ache of a long day of enjoyment. My mom’s birthday is in August, right around meteor shower season in the Pacific Northwest. For her birthday, we would set up a queen-sized air mattress on our porch. My sister and I would sleep on the air mattress with Mom, and Dad would sleep on his camping cot to test drive it before hunting season arrived. The meteor showers were beautiful. It was probably the latest I was allowed to stay up past my bedtime.

We started dating 13 months after we met. I think I was in love with Claire from the moment I really saw her. There were 14 people in our teen unit of soon-to-be assistant cabin leaders. On the first night, she pulled out her baritone ukulele and sang a song before Lights Out. She sounded like the way a cool breeze in August felt. She touched my soul in that moment, and we were intertwined from there on out. I had never loved a girl before I met her. I knew it couldn’t be undone.

I think the stars can hold our secrets. Our wishes. Our dreams. Wish on a shooting star, and maybe it’ll come true.

On the queen-sized air mattress, my sister decided at 12 years old that she was going to be an astronomer. My mom held her close and told her to wish on the next shooting star she saw. My dad saw a star soon after. He called it out, and my sister closed her eyes and made her wish. I closed my eyes and wished the meteor chunks wouldn’t come crashing down to Earth and kill us all. I was scared of the uncertainty.

At 12 years old, I went to camp for a week. I was in Hemlock cabin, and I met a girl. We became fast friends; we did most of our activities together. We learned to love ourselves and our budding pre-teen personalities. We set goals, did a special candlelit ceremony, got a bandana tied around our necks by our cabin leader, and held hands a lot. I don’t remember her name, but I wish I did. I only cried on the first night that week.

Claire’s birthday is in May. She always wants to go camping for her birthday, and so we do. If we can’t go camping, then we set up a tent in my parents' backyard and spend a night outdoors. I don’t know why she loves it so much; she has horrible allergies. She says the electricity in our room is too loud, even though I’ve never been able to hear it. We moved in together after I had the hearing damage from a Green Day Concert without ear protection. She always wakes up sneezing and blowing her nose a million times over, and then she says she can’t wait to do it again. And so, our garage looks like the display cases at an REI.

Sometimes I read about the Chicxulub Crater and wonder what would have happened if the meteor had hit me instead. But I wasn’t alive yet. I wonder if I will be for the next one.

When I was 15, I skipped going to camp for the summer. My choir was taking a trip to the UK, so my parents said they could either afford the UK trip or camp. Of course, I picked the UK. I had been watching too many British shows that were well known only to the teens who were online a little more than they should have been, in hopes of the brilliant detective finally kissing his codependent roommate. They never kissed, and I didn’t know why it upset me so much. What proof did I have that they were in love beyond a few acts of desperation and a dangerous amount of longing glances? I spent a lot of time missing camp that summer. I wanted to know if I would have cried, if I would have learned to love myself again–a skill I lost when at school. I wanted to know if the girl I met when I was 12 would be back. I didn’t know why I missed her so much.

When I was 11, I got glasses. I couldn’t see the whiteboard in class. My mom didn’t know my vision had gotten so bad. She blamed it on trying to read in dim light. I wondered why the stars couldn’t shine brighter for me. I missed them.

I don’t fall asleep quickly. I never have. I need to be physically and mentally exhausted if I want to fall asleep before a sleepless hour or two of me staring at the ceiling passes by in the night. Claire falls asleep fast. She always has. Every time she would sleep over at my house, even before we were dating, she would fall asleep in 20 minutes or less. It amazed me, still amazes me now. Sometimes we lie in bed, and I just stare at her. Her brow is soft, and her lips are just a little bit parted so she won’t grind her teeth in her sleep.

Sometimes I can see her heartbeat in her neck, throbbing. I count the beats until I fall asleep.

When I was 14, I broke up with my boyfriend. I just didn’t feel that way about him.

When I was 16, I went to camp. I met a girl named Claire. I couldn’t help but wonder about the girl from Hemlock Cabin, and if the way I felt about Claire said anything about the way I had felt about her.

When I was 20, I was a cabin leader. I had been wanting that job since I was 9 years old. I knew how important the outdoors is to child development, so why wouldn’t I want that job? It was a dream. Co-led a pack of about twelve kids who were all jammed into the girls' cabin. They renamed the female identifying cabin to be more inclusive, even though the gender queer kids would still be stuck in either the female identifying cabin or the male identifying cabin, so they really had no choice but to be called female identifying even if they weren’t. Half the time when I would talk to my friend Jack, my campers would ask if we were dating. I would tell the kids no, he’s not my type. Jack and I would laugh because we both knew I had no interest in dating men.

When I was 16, I broke up with my boyfriend. He said it felt like I didn’t love him. He was right.

When I was 20, I told a camper I was dating a woman. She was insistent on knowing if I was single or not. She said something along the lines of, I’m not a lesbian, but I think it’s cool you are. But, are you sure you’re not dating Jack?

When I was 16, I climbed up to the roof of my parents’ garden shed with Claire. We watched the sunset over the water, and she cried. She loves sunsets. I saw the way she looked at the colors painting the clouds, and I told her I wished she looked at herself the way she looked at the sunset. I told her that’s how I saw her. She looked at me like I had just said something irreversible, because I had. She looked at me like maybe she was falling in love, too.

Sometimes I wonder if the stars are even real. Every time I take off my glasses, I can’t see them.

When I was 20, I was lying on a tarp in the middle of a field, listening to the campers fall asleep. The kids called me Glitter because of the Glitter I would put on their cheeks before the big camp party with music, dancing, field games, and swimming. They called my friend Lizard because they made so many beaded lizards. So there were the kids, sleeping on the tarp, Lizard and Glitter sleeping on the side closest to the trail leading to the bathroom, so they wouldn’t get lost in the night. They were all asleep, Lizard too. I couldn’t sleep, so I kept my glasses on. It was almost August, might as well try to spot a meteor hurtling towards me. I had missed seeing the meteors on my mom’s birthday. I hadn’t done that since I was 9. I looked up at the sky. I learned a lot about space from my sister, who had gotten her minor in astronomy and her major in environmental sustainability. Not quite what she wished for, but close enough.

As I lay on the edge of the tarp, I waited to see…something. I knew that patch of sky well by this point in the summer. My camper, who had been a loud snorer all week, finally fell asleep. I let myself relax. I checked my watch. 11:37 p.m. I lay there and waited. 11:52 p.m. Nothing other than the mosquito trying to bite my forehead. Suddenly, the entire sky was illuminated, a green so bright it was almost white, shot across the sky. I held my breath, and a second later it was gone. I blinked. It was so bright it left a streak behind my eyelids. My mind whirled; it was so bright. I whispered to Lizard, woke them up, “Did you see that? Did you fucking see that?” They were asleep; they barely woke up enough to tell me they hadn’t. The brightest shooting star I’ve seen in my entire life, and no one saw it but me. The mosquito landed on my forehead, and I let it take its fill. I needed to wake up with proof that it had really happened. It felt magical, borderline impossible. I was so in awe, I didn’t even remember to make a wish. I guess the woods had already given me everything I needed.

When I was 18, I moved in with Claire. We shared a college dorm with two other people. Claire wished one of us had a car so she could go camping more often. I wished the same for her.

When I was 20, there was a mosquito bite on my forehead. I woke up with my glasses on. It had to have been real. I asked my coworkers if anyone else was awake late enough to see it. They all said no, but they wished they had seen it. They told me it sounded incredible. “It was,” I replied. “I don’t even know if it was real.”

When I was 10, I asked my mom if she wanted to sleep on the porch again for her birthday. She said no, she didn’t trust the forecast for the morning. We didn’t sleep outside again.

I wonder if the stars knew I was queer from the moment they laid eyes on me. I wonder if they could have told me sooner.

I’m 22. A meteor has yet to hit me and destroy everything I love. A secret wish between me and a chunk of rock, both holding wishes, both loved, scared of uncertainty.