“Mom,” she calls my name.

Bedtime closing in.

“Would you like to sit outside with me and Otto and look at the stars?  We can wrap up in blankets.”

(Because the temperature was nearly 60 degrees after all.)

I would like to do that.  I can think of nothing better to do right now, as a matter of fact.

And I tell her so.

We turn out the porch lights.  Quietly walk to the steps.  Take our places in silence and then we look up.

We look at the stars.

At Orion’s Belt and twinkling planes.

I love any piece and part of nature that reminds me that I am small and that the creator of the stars is big.

With soft steps, another child joins us.  Then two more.  And Ryder.

All together.  On the steps.  In the dark and quiet of the evening.

“Mom,” Bergen whispers.  “What’s beyond the universe?  What do you think?  Do you think there is something?  Or nothing?  Samuel thinks beyond the universe is heaven.”

And then he converses, half to himself, for many minutes about unnamed constellations he’d like to discover and characters in Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time series and how he hopes to name his newly discovered constellations after stories from the novels.

My brain has never moved in the same circles as my son’s brain moves in.  But I love being an audience to his education and processing.

In front of me, my knees to his back, Otto leans in and asks, “Are you cold Mommy?”

“I’m fine, thank you.  Why do you ask?”

“Well, I thought you might want me to sit in your lap to keep you warmer.”

And just like I always want to sit on the steps in the dark on a fine autumn evening looking at stars with my children, I always want to make room for Otto on my lap.

“Son,” I snuggle into his warm neck and tell him these words, “I’ll always let you sit in my lap.  Long after you have any desire to sit in your mommy’s lap, I’ll still be wishing you wanted to sit there.”

We all sit longer.

Breathing in and out and searching the night sky.

For signs.  For shooting stars.  For assurance in a tricky world.  For beauty.  For comfort.

Just for the sake of being beside one another.

All the best kind of magic we’ve ever made has been the simple, porch sitting, quiet listening, moment embracing variety.

__________________________