There is a place at the end of my street where the very top of the cornfield meets the very bottom of the sky and it feels like the earth goes on forever. If you stand at the edge of the gravel road and look as far as you can, and then look farther, you just might see eternity. If you go at dusk, or just afterwards, it's certain you will. There's something in the sparse clouds that somehow resonates, even in the pitch black, into shades of deep purple and blue. When you stand in that spot and don't move for a while, you could be looking over a vast ocean at the horizon, and you nearly forget you're looking at a cornfield. And if you wait there until it gets so dark that you can see the darkness, you can look directly above and see the universe. Standing even at ground level, you can see the earth's curvature in the stars. Suddenly you feel as if you're standing on the tip of the universe with all of life's expansion around you. That's the place I go when I need to be reminded that I'm part of something bigger than anyone can imagine, and for a few moments glimpse into that abandon of reality.On those nights I spend at the end of the street I can only look at the cornfield for a few minutes before I have to go back inside in case someone discovers I'm missing and comes to join me. Escapism only works when you're alone. So I slip in through the regrettably squeaky front door and seep back into my life with my family. Usually on a Friday night I can smell the Shabbat candles burning down low on the dining room table, the air carrying the heavy scent of three used matches and the melting of yet another pair of cheap white wax covered wicks. They're the stubborn kind that won't light at first and then burn for three hours, shining as two small points of light on an absence of candle. Meanwhile my dad washes piles of blue and white china in the kitchen. My mother is in the kitchen with him, and they stand, savoring the last of their wine, while watching the yellow dish soap wash challah crumbs down the drain and discussing the latest Sisterhood gossip or business deal. I join my younger brother in setting up "Where in the U.S.A. is Carmen Sandiego" or some other board game so we can spend at least a little time together. My dad joins us grudgingly unless the game is Monopoly. My mother joins us enthusiastically unless the game is Monopoly. We roll the dice a few times and talk together and laugh together, which is good because it's only minutes before my brother is losing and leaves the table upset, or my dad gets bored, or my mother gets a phone call, like any other family. At least our family had the first few minutes.
I find myself in such a contemplative mood often. When I am able to go up to the observation deck of the John Hancock building in Chicago, instead of crowding around the hopeless pay telescopes that never work anyway, I go at night. I find a spot to sit by myself and watch the multitude of lights below. I look out over Chicagoland and all I can think is that there are thousands of people out there, in their cars, and in each of the lighted windows of the office and apartment buildings, who I haven't met and probably never will meet. Yet all their lives exist to the same extent that mine does, and everything they do, in some indirect way, affects me.
Maybe that's why decisions are so important. People might call me indecisive at times, but I think I'm just careful. Of course, I don't think about these things every time I decide whether to do Calculus homework before English, or while I ponder the irony of eating Maruchan Instant Lunch for dinner. But when I look up at the stars I see above the cornfield, they're the same stars people all over the earth can see at some point, and the same stars someone standing at that spot five hundred or a thousand years ago saw. There's a sense of unity and it's comforting. It tells me that when I have to go back inside, at least I can know that the time I spend with my family and whatever decisions I make about my future will mean something.
