Each year as I lay watching for meteors shooting as if from the Perseids, I think to myself next year. Next year, I will plan ahead and find the perfect spot.  Next year, I'll see them all.  After a late dinner on Friday night, everyone headed in.  My mom left me a glass of wine and I stayed bundled up in a blanket on our kitchen patio (aka, the beer garden).  After an hour I'd only seen two faint shooting stars.  Then, right before midnight one brilliant meteor shot from one side of the sky to the other.  It was lovely.  I'm sure if we didn't have street lights, and the neighbor's patio lights weren't on, and it hadn't been a full moon I'd have caught quite a few more.  But even still, it was worth it to see that one, and to know there were dozens more just as brilliant, if not perceived by me.  I finished my wine, grabbed my blanket and went inside as I whispered to myself and the stars, next year.

Anyone else catch the Perseid Meteor Shower this year?  It peaked around 2am on August 13th.  See a few more shooting stars than usual?  That's why. ;)

I love all of my memories of the Perseids, and I look forward to all the annual ones to come. 

(Carolyn Jackson, August 12, 2011)