all the lights of midnight

(I’m still struggling to write anything, so this has taken a while.)

***

Came back from a week in Scotland recently. I already wish I could go back, even though it rained most of the time, and I mostly just sat in a caravan and knitted or cross-stitched like the dork I am.But there were good moments - lovely moments actually. I saw a Scottish wildcat, for one. A real one. In the wild. It turned and ran away from me the second it spotted me, and for a moment I didn’t even realise what it was - it was so big, my brain just didn’t quite register the idea of “cat”. But it was amazing to see it. I saw one before, about twenty-five years ago - it hissed at me and ran away - but it’s not a common thing, at all.

***

And the stars were so clear, this one night… My boyfriend was standing outside, smoking a cigarette, I was sitting inside, and he knocked on the window and said “Come outside. The sky’s so clear, there’s not a single cloud, the stars are great.” I was warm and cosy, I didn’t want to move. I pointed to a white smudge in a the sky and said “Cloud, right there. Don’t exaggerate.”

“Just come out.”

I came outside, and let my eyes adjust for a minute.

“Oh… oh, holy fuck.”

“Kind of impressive, right?”

“… Right, so that’s not a cloud. That’s the fucking Milky Way.”