I feel that ever since man set foot on this earth, we always had one natural inclination. We always look up. We look up toward the sun, toward the clouds, we dream of being able to soar through the deep blue overhead. We strive to build better airplanes or spaceships, anything to help us get there. As humans, we are obsessed with the sky. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if we popped right out of the womb on the day of our births, looking straight up. Okay, maybe that didn’t happen. But every since then, we look up there. I look up at the sky. I look up whenever I can. When you’ve got nowhere else to look, you can always just lift your chin. I can go anywhere on God’s green earth, wherever the wind will take me, and I can feel at home by simply looking up. I was looking up that night. It was sometime in June, and two of my friends and I were on a swing set at around ten or eleven in the night. You are never too old for a swing set, I’ll tell you that right now. I was looking up that night, like I have said before, and I will probably say again. I was looking up and I was getting lost in that black. Maybe it’s a blue, maybe it’s a purple – to some people. To me, it looks like you spilled a bottle of ink and it spread right over the heavens, creating a mysterious beauty that you just want to be wrapped up in and never come out. Then you see the stars. Man, do I love stars. Little pockets of light in all that dark. They remind you that there is always a light in everything. That ancient light that is shining down on you. Those aren’t just burning balls of gas and fire; those are the hearts of the universe. You can bet your life that when mine is done; those stars are still going to be in my heart. I don’t think there ever was – nor can there ever be – something as beautiful as the night sky. I love the feeling of the sun on my face, and the sky turns a pretty blue, but I will be honest: It can’t compare to a summer night sky. The warm air like an invisible blanket on your skin, one that was set to the perfect temperature so it dissolves right around you. The crickets and cicadas making the only music that they know how to make, coming from only a few feet away, but simply background noise in your mind. That’s what I felt that night on the swing sets. I push my legs forward, trying to go higher and higher, trying to reach that sky. I feel like I am so close, that it is wrapping its arms around me and pulling me in. I feel happy, but it is a new kind of happy. It is a happy that was awakened inside me and spreads through my body like fire until…I fall. My fantasy is ripped open as I reach the height of my swing and start moving backward, toward the Earth. But I will try and try again to reach that sky. To feel that feeling. I can almost image the pupils of my eyes becoming starry as I look up. That is how they feel. The sky is pouring into me, making me whole every time that I look at it. Every night we have a paradise overhead, and the majority of us don’t even know it. Sometime, in the middle of the night, step outside and be instantly awakened by the magic and mystery that hits you. Shut the door behind you, hearing that squeak that is so much louder to you. Listen to the silence, reveal in it, and tilt your head back until all you see is the sky. Until the sky sees you. Until you feel the warmth spreading in you and nothing else matters because you are not thinking of anything else. That moment is all that matters, that moment is everything. I’ll be looking at the same night sky as you, sharing the moment in a different spot. For I am a child of the sky. I will always look up.