My wife was a born and raised big city girl. She never knew what a real night sky looked like outside of the 20 or so brightest objects you can see in the city. She was well travelled, but only to other cities. She has never even gone camping.

When we were dating, after discovering she had not seen a real night sky in her life, late one night I took her just on a drive out to the outer edge of farm country. Not even close to actual dark sky, but way better than anything she had ever seen. It was a magical moment. She never knew you could see the milky way, let alone Andromeda with your eyes.

Imagine being a young adult woman and only ever having seen a handful of the brightest stars. Some boy you dig, but barely know gets all excited when the conversation turns to astronomy, which you know nothing about and aside from polite conversation, don’t care about. He gets this cheshire cat’s grin, whisks you into his car and drives 2 hours out into the country at 1am. You’re nervous. The drive is long enough for various weird scenarios to pop into your head, not all of them good. He stops the car at a dead end dirt road without so much as a streetlight. Just farms in the distance. Its a warm summer night. He gets out of the car and opens the door for you. A gentle breeze blows on your face and you can hear crickets chirping. He holds both your hands warmly gives you the biggest smile, looks deep into your eyes and says “Look up now”.

Then you see it for the first time.

Married now for ~ 20 years, and while I’ve had more than my share of less than charming moments, she still says when I put in the effort, I can be devastatingly romantic.