womankind’s Astronomy Challenge
Day one: The Los Angeles sky never gets dark. Tonight is no different. In fact, the perpetual twilight between dawn and dusk is made worse because a solid, flat haze of clouds is reflecting the light pollution more than normal. The entire sky is a blanket of dusty purple and orange. Every palm tree and building antenna stands in clear relief. I try to get away from the bright street light outside my front door. Bright porch lights from neighbours make either side of my apartment building just as bright. In the back, flood lights illuminate the parked cars. I cannot see a single star. I wouldn’t expect to see many on a clear night, but I did expect to count the aeroplanes flying overhead. Tonight, I could only hear them. The sky feels false. The blankness is unsettling. I hope tomorrow is a bit clearer.
Day two: I wondered if the dusky sky I saw the night before was because I was out too early. Tonight, I wait until almost 11pm to step outside. It is another cloudy night, and the sky is the same dusky orange-lavender colour as the night before. It was brighter outside than in my dim bedroom. I now feel awake, and I feel robbed of a birthright. Where is my deep midnight sky? Where are my stars? I grew up in the mountains above Los Angeles where the sky became dark each night, and we could look down onto the city lights far below. My parents called it “the jewel box city”. Now I live in the jewel box, where there is no night. Darkness has gone the way of strawberries that taste like strawberries, and friendships built through shared experience and struggle, and clean air that you can breathe in deeply. What would happen if the billboards and street lights were turned off for a few hours a night? Are we that afraid of the dark?
Day three: There’s less cloud cover tonight so I can see a bit of the sky peeking through. No stars though, and no moon. The air is a bit chilly, and I wonder if the people walking past me on the sidewalk notice me looking straight up. The sky to the west is more orange than the rest of the sky. I’ve noticed this on previous nights as well. I wonder what’s causing that. I feel calmer tonight than the last two nights, where I mostly felt anger and frustration about what we’ve done to our poor planet. I’ve heard there are microbes in the air that clean it, but only when it’s dark enough. The light pollution in LA is adding to our air pollution, because it never gets dark enough for these little microbes to do their work. I wonder if the microbes notice.
Day four: I’m surprised tonight. First, by the light pollution, which is worse than I remember from the nights before. Second, by a star. One single star. Or is it a satellite? It’s gone in a just few moments, hidden behind clouds perhaps. It’s the first body I’ve seen in the sky in four nights, and I find myself delighted at spotting it. I spent today at the Natural History Museum training to be a community scientist who documents the flora and fauna in the urban spaces I have access to, like the land around my apartment building or the vacant lots in my neighbourhood. It’s about noticing the life and habitat that is here. This one satellite: it’s here.
Day five: STARS! Perhaps a dozen or so. Two are bright enough that they must be planets. I see a plane leaving Los Angeles as well. There are far fewer clouds tonight. It’s still brighter outside at night than it is in my apartment. I enjoy the act of looking up - the opening of the chest, the stretch of the neck, the use of muscles that aren’t engaged very often. We spend so much time looking down. What would it take to bring the night sky back to LA? I imagine an act of city council that requires all lights be turned off between certain hours. Or legislated dark nights, maybe every Sunday or Tuesday. Businesses would complain about lost revenue. Police would complain about crime. But what do we lose when we don’t have darkness, and how much is that darkness worth? I fantasise about cutting the power to the billboards that blast light through my bedroom window all night, and breaking the sterile blue street light that lights up the front of my building. In the same way it’s getting harder to find clean air and clean water and wild habitat, it’s getting harder to find dark skies and see the stars. When so much needs our action and attention, are the stars worth fighting for?
The term ‘empty nest’ connotes such a bleak future, as if one’s primary purpose in life has been served and what remains is, well, emptiness. A few weeks ago my husband and I dismantled our family nest and created three small nests for our adult children before we moved from the Midwest to the Bay Area, specifically to a 350 square foot floating home in Sausalito; a bobbing nest for two. Feeling literally ungrounded and adrift, what better way to feel grounded than to connect with the vastness of the universe and to gaze upon the same night sky that blankets those little nests we left behind? As I
