Star-Gazing

Iide-machi is home to a handful of 7-11’s, a bakery, and a solitary grocery store too small to house a meat section.  I recently discovered, however, that Iide is also the proud home of a miniature but fully functional observatory that is barely taller than the buildings surrounding it, and easy to miss. I can vouch for this, having continually missed it dozens of times as I’ve driven past it.  But during a brief few weeks when the skies were clear, a friend took me there to see Jupiter (or the Heaven Star in Japanese).

It was a crisp night and my coat was too thin for it, but it seemed appropriate to feel the cold biting me as I peered through the telescope at the harshest environment mankind has encountered. Space was too dark for comfort; my eyes kept straining to pick out even a hint of depth or distance in all the ink. My eyes were beginning to water from the effort when the astronomers present mercifully adjusted the telescope, and then there was only the harsh beauty of the planets and stars themselves. From the moment I saw them—or at least, a reflection of a reflection of them, viewed awkwardly through a tiny tube—I felt myself drawn in and overwhelmed, like there was a massive gravity acting on my mind instead of my body. 

The astronomers knew me by name (it is, as I’ve mentioned, a rather small town) and were  lenient, so I remained glued to the lens until the unrelenting light made my eyes water anew.  I studied the face of the full moon and the rabbit that Japanese fables have placed there; but of course the real event was gazing at Jupiter. The planet was ringed by four of its moons—Io, Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa—in almost perfect alignment, like a string of diamond chips leading to the giant.  I could just make out the rusty swirls marking Jupiter’s eternal storms.  Seeing it, I recognized the temptation poets and writers must sometimes feel to produce lengthy, sappy odes to the stars over and over again, while the enduring audience rolls their eyes at the inadequate results and groans at the clichés.  My experience, holed up in that tiny concrete cylinder with an expensive lens practically glued to my face, was no less cliché...and absolutely, mind-bogglingly, brilliantly, painfully inspiring.