Time Travel, Writing and the Persiedes Meteor Shower

When my sweetheart travels I often go with him, if not in fact then at least in action. When he is in another country and the clocks alter time I follow suite. My days get longer at first and then capsize in on themselves as I adapt to catnaps sprinkled in between long chats on the phone or via the computers. This occurs regardless of my best intentions to stay in the timezone where my feet are planted.

There are benefits to my sleepless nights; I am at my most creative late at night. Alone, my emotions run high and the shadows offer a discretion that is too easily voided out by the introspective light of day. In the dark I can write, but it is harder to peer at the page and reread the words laid out bare. Words fall from my fingertips with more honesty when given time to rest upon the page a while before being edited apart and dissected under bright lights. Nightfall allows time to pass before the fitful barrage of second guesses occur.

At this moment I am still at the brainstorming stage where ideas bombard me with such great impact that they threaten to remove prior thoughts and dislodge them from memory. I am still at the stage where I am frightened enough to keep pen always at hand, prepared to jot down my frenetic thoughts; to sketch them out a little later, once the tumult dies down somewhat and i can scavenge through the remnants of paper and text files to find the hidden gems.

My intention, to let the words fall, free of critique and restraint. Pleased enough with their existence in of itself.

It is a result of this recent time travel, the catnaps and what might be empty nights that in fact are not empty, that I will be readily available to sit outside and watch the Persiedes Meteor Shower this evening. While awake.

Details available on tonight's sky show that Perseus will rise in the northeast this evening, around nine pm, August 11th. It will not be until after 2 am that the moon sets and the sky becomes clear enough for the main show to present itself though. In a few minutes I am going to go dust off our telescope and ready my sky watching theatre in preparation. Then later, when I awake from another catnap I am going to curl up with a glass of wine in one hand and a pen in the other to watch the falling sky...


I will be looking for Perseid Earthgrazers--meteors that approach from the horizon and skim the atmosphere overhead like a stone skipping across the surface of a pond.

Earthsky offers a calendar of meteor and stargazing events for North America here. Astronomy.com offers excellent introductory to stargazing at their site. Space.com offers historical background and details on where and how to locate the best viewing experience.