Under the stars

Most people miss the food, a certain festival or tradition of their home town. Not Polly. What she missed the most about home was the sky. The illusory black heavens filled with unforgiving stars that were able to blind anyone who stared at it. Only lovers and bohemians dared the feat. Polly was among the firsts, even though she collected late night adventures marked by wine-filled jam sessions with the best young musicians in town.

What she truly enjoyed was the long hours spent by the kitchen window observing the enigmatic beauty of the bright blue-green sky. She would be taken by the relentless silence of the night in a matter of seconds. She would wait for these moments all day.

They say home is where your family is. Polly knew that where her family was there was too much drama, noise and conflict.

On some nights she would fantasize of having the sky as her roof. For her, home was where her heart was at peace, and that was the sky.

If the sky was her ceiling, for every sign of routine and boredom she would say: “Not under my roof!”

The architect of her home designed each piece according to the owner’s taste: spacious, flat with old high-pitched constellations, irregularly cloudy, yet delicately decorated, and with a glowing halo chimney called the Moon.

When Polly decided to leave her hometown, she was breaking her own shelf, leaving behind everything that was familiar. Her hope was to find peace that lasts. To find a place where she didn’t have to wait for the serene, moonlit night to breathe calmly. A place where the blissful cloudless blue sky would welcome sunlight to kiss her skin, and the wind to blow her long dark hair, whispering freedom in her ears.

*This piece was written as a result of a prompt offered by Rough Writers Toastmasters Club, my writing club, inspired by an original art work by Bash Art. The painting is available for viewing at the Long Beach Creative Group until August 14th, 2021 as part of the show “Coming Together — an exhibition of small works.”