Don't Postpone Joy: Why We Stargaze

Years ago, I had a bumper sticker that read, “Don’t Postpone Joy.” That simple, profound message has garnered a lot of attention over the years. One time, the driver and passenger of a car on the highway waved frantically at me to roll down my window so they could shout, “Where did you get that bumper sticker?!” at 60 miles per hour.

Don’t postpone joy. It’s a decent mantra for living.

In July 2020, I lay outside on the picnic table in the dark, looking up. At the time, we had a small open patch of sky visible from behind the house, which blocked the streetlamps and most of the lights from neighboring homes. But inside Portland city limits, the sky was dark gray at best. I used my old binoculars — a cheap pair of 10x50 Tascos — to scan directly above, with a little room to the east and northeast. I could glimpse parts of Cassiopeia through our apple tree branches and Cygnus peeking out from behind a neighbor’s wild cherry tree. Ursa Minor was easy enough, and I could trace Draco if I tried hard. Delphinus and Sagitta were hidden by the roof and another big tree.

It wasn’t awesome stargazing, but that was okay. I wasn’t target hunting. I barely even registered what I was looking at. In the midst of a global pandemic and mounting tension around the U.S. presidential election, I mostly just needed a break from the world.

I hadn’t looked up at the sky in years, not really. Sure, I’d say hello to Orion when I spotted him on clear winter nights, and I regularly marveled at the Moon, but I hadn’t had time for stargazing. No, I hadn’t made time for stargazing.

But a friend was rediscovering his childhood love of amateur astronomy, and knowing about my own space nerdiness, he encouraged me to spend some time looking up, too.

What a difference a few moments can make. That summer night, my heart rate slowed as I turned my attention skyward, and my breathing evened out. It’s no exaggeration to say I felt knots loosening up. There were no agendas, no deadlines, no digital alerts pulling my focus. It was just me and the stars — and some irritating light escaping the kitchen window, and the splintery wood of the old picnic table. But I found such peace — such relief — in the midst of the world’s turmoil.

With or without my cheap binoculars, the night sky brought me back to myself. Under the stars, I remembered the whole reason why I wanted to be a writer in the first place — to carry on the tradition of the campfire storytellers from millennia in the past, spinning tales of challenge, reassurance, and meaning beneath their own star-filled skies. More than that, it was a rediscovery of wonder and awe, and it was available to me on any clear night, mere steps outside my door.

“Don’t postpone joy,” I whispered to myself. I developed a new habit of getting ready for bed, waiting in my pajamas for the sky to get dark enough, and then stretching out on the picnic table or on a blanket in the grass for a few moments of much-needed restoration. We’ve cleared some tree branches since then, and I’ve found a few spots for better views, depending on the season and what I’d like to marvel at. I eventually bought myself a zero-gravity chair for comfort, and I’ve been assembling an array of binoculars and telescopes to feed the habit that in turn feeds my soul.

I rest better on those nights, even when I sacrifice sleep to stay up late or get up super early, and there’s a quiet but excited tranquility that carries over into the next day. Once the timelessness of the vast universe sinks into your bones, the immediate concerns of an agitated world don’t penetrate as deeply.

My father used to tease me by quoting that bumper sticker. Now, years after the sticker colors have faded and its slogan lost, his reminders are in earnest. And I’m listening.

Why do you stargaze? Watch this space for more explorations on why we look up.