Sometimes in life there are moments in which you know that you are seeing something special, something you will never see again. The star-crossed elements align and a magic moment happens.
I had one of those moments tonight, on a red-eye flight from LA to Nashville. As I blearily stared out the window between attempts to sleep, the layers of the sky separated.
Below were the lights of a city, maybe somewhere in Texas. Ribbons of orangey pinpricks outlined the streets, knotted together to create a downtown. In the second level, a summer storm raged as we flew parallel, just to the north. The clouds flickered and glowed with constant lightning. Above the fighting clouds, a third level opened to the heavens. The Big Dipper, bright and bold among hundreds of more distant kin, looked serenely over the fleeting scene below.
Three layers--the sleeping city, the ancient universe, and the chaos in between.
