The air is so clean and crisp tonight that I can see the Milky Way from my back porch. The fucking Milky Way. A simple spiral arm of one single galaxy, if I remember my astronomy correctly. A sea of stars; bright, beckoning and dense with possibilities. An ageless display, packed with the same undimmed mysteries pondered by the ancients. A well-worn footpath of old and forgotten gods. Or a river of mother’s milk, squeezed from the goddess herself. A sight, so beautiful in its grandeur and yet, so easily taken for granted. It’s been decades since I’ve been able to see it from home. Just there. Only a few feet from where I sit now. Right outside the back door. Standing, cloaked in darkness, drink in hand and wearing nothing but sandals. Looking up and up and up, while breezes murmur in treetops. Just as it was when I was a child; overwhelming and comforting, all at the same time. That’s magic, baby. The real thing. The kind that, as I hug myself against the chill, I realize is at its most potent, when it can be shared…