Late last fall, I was walking in my neighborhood when I saw a string of tiny blue stars lying in the street. I picked them up, but they were just cheap plastic, broken and filthy, so I tossed them in the grass by the curb. Weeks later, after a hard rain, I passed the same corner and saw the stars again, soaking wet and waiting.
“I guess I’m supposed to have these,” I thought and put them in my pocket. At home, I shook the stars in a jar of soapy water and laid them on a paper towel. They were pretty beat up, stars without points, points without stars, clinging to the string. Still, they gleamed in fragments of silvery blue.
So I hung them above my desk and noticed them every day. Noticed how beautiful they were, more beautiful than many things I had acquired brand new and on purpose. I don’t know why I found them and I don’t need to know.
I’ve spent my life looking for answers. In the time left, I want to celebrate the mysteries. Like the way I walk into my dark office and see the blue stars, the way they catch the light when there is no light.
