The phenomena was much bally-hooed, so I did my homework, hoping to be one of the pilgrims for the miracle in the evening sky. The Christmas star was all over the internet, on every news show, written up in newspapers and magazines. If you missed this. . .well, you really couldn't. Today, I'm sure there are a couple million shots like that one above, not to mention thousands and thousands more up-close- and-personal.
So Grandpa called the kids, and sure enough if they weren't already interested and planning to head out somewhere into the darkness, a place where there are no farms to speak of, the kind of place recommended and not particularly hard to find here in any direction from town.
I thought a cemetery might be good, an old one, so out we went, west of town.
I guess I didn't catch the fine print because we got out there early--just at sunset, which was itself a downright heavenly show, Christmas-wrapped with braided contrails.
We fully expected that, like the shepherds, we'd be knocked silly by the immensity of that great star. Well, it didn't happen.
And didn't happen. And didn't happen. Fortunately, I picked out a cemetery surrounded by pines, the only place in the county where you can be serenaded by the music of wind through trees--fortunately, because while the temperature was comely for late December, a wickedly cold wind made music all right, but would have turned us all into pillars of frost if it weren't for that circle of pines.
So we waited. And waited. And waited. And waited, authentic Advent-level waiting, all the time looking to the sky. We'd done our prep, set up two tripods, one with a camera and a huge schnoz of a lens, the other with a telescope long as your arm, all of us well-bundled, some wrapped in blankets like wintering prairie aboriginals.
Still nothing. The kids started horsing around--who could blame them? You had to stay warm. Northwest Iowa isn't tropical Galilee.
A star appeared, north and east from the evening's half-moon--but that was the wrong place; then another, south and west, more of a poke than a glimmer, but unmistakably star-like. We had hope. Still we waited.
When I stared at this tiny heavenly apparition, what I saw seemed a double. Even though I knew what I was looking for, I didn't believe it when I saw it because this oh-ye-of-little-faith guy doubted himself. Like an old man, I was just seeing double. That couldn't be it.
We went to the technology. Powerful magnification doesn't ensure success. Finding that pinpoint against a massively-wide, bare-naked background took some hunting; but when, finally, the telescope brought the Conjunction to the cemetery, the truth was perfectly and blessedly evident--the star we'd seen was indeed a planet, two of them, coming together sweetly then moving away, more, I must admit, like a troubled marriage than a heavenly portent of a child in a manger.
By that time, a few pilgrims had enough of the cold and were warming up in the car. In fact, as we left the cemetery, the heavenly conjunction of Saturn and Mars seemed brighter than it was while we waited. We hadn't missed it--no, no, no, we'd seen it; but the cold might have run us out of the cemetery before the climax of the show. See that picture way up top?--I took it with my phone before I got into the car.
But we had fun. Did I mention the huge snowy owl that got perturbed about how we disturbed him? In that old cemetery he'd probably not been visited by a gang of humanoid noisemakers before. That snowy thing was huge, a portent of something I'm sure--in an evening of portents, as much a star as the star.
Was it perfect? No. We left our real Advent pilgrimage a little early and without ceremony. We might have caroled, that great white owl for an audience. He might have hooted himself a few bars of "Silent Night."
When we got back to town, we ate at a pizza buffet. Then I took our youngest grandchild to Walmart, where he picked out presents for each member of the family--and I paid, a authentic Christmas ritual we've done with one of the kids for years.
When we left their place, our fingers were still a little stiff--when we made our own quiet way home, I couldn't help telling my wife, "That was nice. That was fun."
Even though I didn't get the picture, it felt as if we'd done our advent thing, waited to see the star. And it just felt good--cold, but good. It felt like Christmas.
And for Grandpa and Grandma, you can't do much better than that.
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