While in High school, growing up on the “Eastside” of Seattle Washington I would go out with my friends in the winter time and look up to see the constellation of Orion. Those three stars lined up just perfectly with the four points made from the stars Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Saiph, and Rigel were nearly impossible to miss. I remember many dates parking by the water talking for hours and looking up to see him there. I would often use him as that awkward moment break by pointing and shouting “Look! Orion”
It was the beginning of my senior year in High school when us seniors went on a trip on the Victoria Clipper to Victoria BC in Canada for one night. My friend Jennifer had found a couple of older men and wanted to go out with them leaving me alone in our hotel room. Later in the evening my Boyfriend Eric and I decided to take a walk outside. We walked down the street to the waterfront and talked. I remember looking up to see Orion there clear and bright shining down on us. That evening sticks in my head like an old movie reel that doesn’t fade.
Later that year Eric passed away from a rare disease that affected his heart. I cried… no I sobbed, for months. My friends often encouraged me to hang out with them mostly in Greg’s basement. I would smile for a few hours enjoying their company but would find myself sobbing on the drive back home. Looking up to the sky through my blurred vision from the tears I could see Orion gleaming down on me.
Throughout the years I would continue to now and again look up to the night sky in the fall and winter time and see him there either clear and bright, muffled by the Seattle clouds or hazy from the city’s pollution.
In 2008 I began dating the man that eventually became my third ex-husband. A bonus from that marriage came a step-son who I grew to love deeply. My step-son’s middle name was “Orion” as my ex-husband had a fondness for the constellation as well and named his son after it.
After the Divorce I dated a man that was very good to me. One of our nights together I noticed a few dots tattooed on his arm in the form of Orion. He said that the constellation meant a lot to him and so he tattooed it on his arm. I never got the story of what the significance to him was.
Here I am starting my first leg of my journey to India and then Nepal for a month. I am 11 hours into my flight with the cabin darkened and all is quiet as my fellow passengers sleep. I look out my window to see the wing laying a path to Orion right there filling up the frame of my window. I have never seen it so big and up close before in my life. I tried to take a picture with my camera on a slow shutter speed and low iso, but can’t capture it without the ability to hold the camera completely still with a tripod on solid ground.
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