The Spaces Between Notes

Truth be told, it was a few days before I knew it for sure.

In the weeks leading up to that evening, I'd alternated between overplanning and underplanning, but going to Enchanted Rock for an evening of camping and stargazing remained tentatively on the agenda, even while I was sick. And so it was that after an afternoon of chatting with the Texanest Texans ever to populate Texas, we found ourselves worn out and a bit vertiginous on the smooth granite dome of Enchanted Rock at dusk, where we gazed out over the rolling hill country and watched day fade into evening.

And so it was that we descended the dome as shadows began to fall upon the land and made our way back to the campsite, where deer lined the path so numerous as to be almost unbelievable, and we stopped to gaze at them quietly before heading off on our way.

And so it was that we opened a tarp out on the ground, on a little clearing nearby, and spread out a sleeping bag and gazed up at the night sky and the ever-growing number of stars as a chill spread over the land. Between us, we counted seven shooting stars, making little wishes for each of them, each of them morphing into tiny prayers that seemed to float upward and into the infinity above us. And we sat there, wrapped in bunnyhugs, talking of everything and nothing until the Big Dipper had rotated in the sky and our eyes would stay open no more.

And that's when I realized that it was the perfect evening, that for that amount of time, there was no place I'd rather be and no one I'd rather be with, even as I shivered in the chilly night.

That's when I knew it for sure.