I saw the whole world in the stars at a KOA.

Adam and I decide to car camp at a KOA in Carbondale one Friday night so he could wake up early to fish his favorite spot, about two hours away from our house. Fishing for him means time reading and writing and journaling and daydreaming out in nature for me. Our favorites.

At the campground that night, we walk to the bathrooms with a lantern, most people already asleep.

“Look up,” he says to me, turning off the lantern. I stagger as I bend backwards and lose my balance at the sight above me.

Millions of stars shining brilliantly. A breathtaking sky that is always there, but hardly seen in our light-polluted world. We stop walking and I am suddenly acutely aware of the sound of our breath.

a small part of this ecosystem.

I see, for the first time, what people mean when they say they saw the Milky Way in the sky. I always thought they were exaggerating, always thought that the pictures were edited.

I get it now. This is the unfiltered universe.

“The last time you would’ve seen a sky this clear and dark was that night you fell asleep in the truck bed at the Granbys like four years ago.”

I remember that night, or rather; I remember the idea of that night. We had arrived at the backcountry lake, truly in the middle of nowhere, around 10 p.m. with the intent of watching the meteor shower that happened every year while Adam also stayed up all night fishing. I ended up drinking way too much vodka to soothe my suffocating fear of the dark and passed out through the entire thing. In the morning, all I cared about was getting home before 9 a.m. so that I wasn’t late signing on for work.

He talked about the night sky and the falling stars for the entire drive home. I didn’t get it; I had missed it.

I missed a lot of awe and magic back then.

It was a time when I felt like nothing would ever be okay, a time when I was drowning in vodka and in the weight of myself.

It was before I adopted the habit of writing down at least one thing a day that inspired awe, that felt like a wink or glimmer from the universe. It was before I trained my brain to look for the magic, instead of the stress.

I am still that girl, only now I’m also the girl that pulled her out of her own misery. I have tools and resources to support that version of myself when she comes up. I have ways to bring myself back to the present moment instead of crashing out about the past or the future. They aren’t big, dramatic tools. They are small shifts. Perspective.

the art of noticing; the art of awe.

As Megan and I talk about in our conversation together on her podcast, Find Your Clarity, I have made it an intentional practice to find magic in the mundane of each day that I’m alive.

Not every day feels like a miracle, not every day feels like a big, perfect day. But each one offers something—a small reminder that I’m here, alive, right now.

intentionally changing my perspective has saved my life. I no longer miss the life that’s happening before my eyes.

When we get back to the car, I unlock my phone and open my Notes app to the pinned “Daily Magic” note. Next to the date, I write, “Saw the whole world in the stars tonight at a KOA.”

It lives on forever in the history of my bones, and in my phone.

xx

Court.