Stargazer

Kristina had always been fascinated by the sky she sat in her relaxing room, feet curled up underneath her drinking coffee in a giant cup, relaxing after her last client she looked out of the window at the patch of blue that she could see between the trees that line the street the rest of it blocked out by the buildings across the street, and thought to herself Its kind of funny really that the thing I make my living from is not something I can even see sitting looking out of the window, I suppose it’s hardly surprising that I am feeling deflated and blocked, I barely see the sky from here she said to herself maybe I should move my office somewhere with a better view.

Still she continued to stare up at that tiny patch of blue, and as her mind relaxed she remembered lying in long grass as a child staring at the sky, and the clouds and then at night with her father gazing up at the stars as he showed her how to identify the constellations. “See Kristina there is the plough, the north star, the bear, Orion, Gemini, that bright one there that’s Saturn. It takes 29 years or there’s about to travel round the sun it will be gone again soon and you will be a woman before you see it again, when it does,  come see me so we can stare at it together like this again.” she used to love those times lying in the long grass the coolness of the night after a long hot day chewing grass shoots.  “how did they get there dad? How many are there?” he laughed gently “hush child you are always so full of questions, lie quiet and take it all in, you know that the lord created us and everything around us enjoy the beauty of his creation”. And they would lie there in quiet contemplation and companionship until mum would call them in to bed.  I was such a daddy’s girl she smiled sadly to herself it’s funny the things you remember she thought.

Her mother was always much sterner, strict and stiff with her somehow, the feeling always made her uncomfortable somehow they never quite understood each other, mummy was very religious though and things became so much worse when just two weeks after her 16^th birthday her father died, mummy if possible became even more locked in and frozen, in grief, in life in so many ways and the whole turning to god thing? Well that just got worse. She had nothing against religion per say or god or a creator or anything else that people believed but it did not seem to do anything beneficial for her, or her mother in fact when like any other teenage girl looking for answers she started looking to the stars for answers, it started just reading them in the papers and magazines her mother caught her and went ballistic! “This stuff is from the devil girl, I won’t allow this rubbish in the house! I forbid it, I will never talk to you again if you defy me” and dragged her off to the reverend for cleansing.

However she was hooked a need to know and learn and understand every thing, why and what controlled things that happened in life, of course mummy found out, and was true to her word, she had not spoken to her mum in .ten years it was sad that she could not understand the connection it gave her with dad.  She often thought about going out to the farm taking the twins, she was missing out on so much of life and being an only child there was really no one else. And she missed her in a strange way, it had been playing on her mind a lot lately she did not really know why it often got in the way of her charts and work these days.  Gazing at the sky again for answers she did a quick calculation.  Saturn was coming back into the sky a new cycle round the sun, has it really been that long? She thought to herself. Well maybe I should go see daddy like he asked me.  I shall sit with him a while and we shall watch the stars like the old days, maybe he always knew this would happen, and that I would need an excuse to go home.