It’s now 5:30am, August 13, 2015. I just finished watching the Perseids meteor shower in a little town two hours east of Yellowstone. The town has a pretty name, Lovell and the night sky was just amazing.

My mom just made a post on Wechat: (here’s the translated version)

We arrived in a little town east of Yellowstone National Park and the sky was full of stars. Now is 5am local time and me and my daughter are still lying on the ground in the parking lot of our hotel, watching meteors flying across the sky occasionally. The sky is turning bright and the stars are fainting. She crawled out of bed at about 2:30 tonight, trying to sneak out of the room with her blankets and pillows. Although I was really tired and sleepy, I followed her and we laid down on the ground together. I saw meteor shower for the first time in my life and I saw a lot of meteors. Meanwhile, she was telling me all sorts of facts about stars and astronomy. She told me that now is the best time to observe the Perseids meteor shower. And it sure is. Back to the same time last year. August 12th, 2014. It was my first time going on an astronomy field trip, to see the same meteor shower from Perseus. Me and my bestie in high school went with the school’s astronomy club to an open soccer field in the faraway suburb of Beijing expecting a night full of meteors and stars. However, the sky was cloudy and the moon was full, which means it was hard to see stars and meteors. I fell asleep at 10, trying to wake up at midnight to see a beautiful sky full of stars but ended up waken up by my bestie. It was a different kind of shower - it started raining around midnight and we have to move inside. Thunders roared in the sky and lightings stroke the night sky frequently turning the entire sky into a purplish blue shade with a piece of sandy yellow. The nature was beautiful in all ways but I missed my meteors. I told myself that sooner or later I will do this again and I will see the meteors that I longed for eventually. Now I did it.

In fact, I have a huge thing over night skies. Specifically speaking, watching meteor showers and observing the night skies is one of my most romantic lifetime goals and wishes.

It all started when I was a little kid. When I was in the second grade, my elementary school took us on a trip to the Astronomy Museum in Beijing. We went to see the planet simulations and scientific explanations and then we watched several astronomy documentaries in the cool 3D and dome cinemas about the universe and stars. It was just purely fascinating. I couldn’t believe that there’s a world above us that’s so gigantic and spectacular. At the end of the trip, we were given time to shop in the store downstairs. I wandered in the store for a long time, debating which object to buy as a souvenir for this eye-opening tour and decided to buy a book instead of a cute planet toy. My mom told me later that I was the only one who bought a book as a souvenir in the second grade. The book is called Greek Mythologies and Constellations. I don’t believe in astrology but I like recognizing the constellations and knowing the mythologies behind them. This book seemed fruitful and practical and also not too serious to bore myself as a beginner. I started reading it avidly, trying to remember everything in that book. Now, I still keep it in a very obvious position on my bookshelves, along with a few other astronomy books that I bought afterwards. It was a good book not only because it was full of contents and useful information but also because it was the book that started my romantic dream about the night skies and constellations in the following decade. In the consecutive trips to the Astronomy Museum, I bought an astrolabe because iPhone apps for observing constellations did not exist back then.

Coincidentally, there was a meteor shower (It might be Leonid) prediction on the newspapers (back in the old days when I still read newspapers). I was so excited about this tiny column in the most abandoned position on the entire newspaper and clipped it onto my notebook. I reminded my parents so many times to actually wake me up at 3am that night. They did woke me up, and I was stupid back then to use a telescope for meteor showers. I found the location of the radiant of the meteor shower and watched for a short while. But I wasn’t expecting anything because there were no stars in the sky in the middle of the city anyway. It was a bit disappointing, but worth a try.

In order to fully grasp the gist of the book, I have to practice by actually observing. However, I can only see very few stars and it was hard to tell which was which. Sometimes when my grandpa was walking with me in the neighbor at night, I would take my fancy portable telescope and zoom in on the moon and watch while my grandpa took a break on the bench.

Moon is also mysterious but I just couldn’t get my eyes off the stars. I wasn’t able to do a lot of things besides reading so I started borrowing old astronomy books from the school library. At that time, I also had a free pass to the local library and there were only two types of books that I borrowed: Japanese anime and astronomy books. I borrowed so many books such as the 100 Most Basic Questions about Astronomy, Observing the Night Sky, Intro to Astronomy, the Big Bang Theory or the Universe. I was such an expert at the different variations of the Big Bang Theory, the expansion theories, all the ultralights in the universe and the full periodic transformation of a star from nebula to different kinds of super giants. I wasn’t into the solar system as much as I was into the remote stars and the universe. Now I can barely remember the basics but that period of time was noticeable - it was the time when I consumed the most books from a library in my entire life. No one ever knows my tiny little quirk even including my parents. I kept reading and learning for no immediate or even long term objective. I just did it for pure pleasure.

I always believe that everyone should have something they just like internally without any external incentives. Everyone should have some useless hobbies. Watching the sky is completely my internal will and one ‘useless’ hobby that I keep.

Then life started going back to normal. I went to astronomy interest clubs in middle school and the teacher was giving out practice exams for some astronomy knowledge contests. I didn’t much like remembering the circumferences or periods of the planets or the different layers of the sun. I learned a lot from those practices, but this was different.

I like my grandparents’ house in the countryside for two reasons: night skies and German shepherds - the two things that rank highly on my useless pastimes’ list. I just love them. The best thing in the world for a little girl would be just sitting in the tiny courtyard besides my dog and watching the night skies where I can finally see stars and the entire Milky Way. This might explains why I was so much more sensitive to air pollution compared to my friends from Beijing. Air and light pollutions kill the perfect night.

I used an astrolabe and apps to help recognize the constellations and it was actually my dad who first recognized some patterns. We watched the sky and named the stars first time by their constellations. I practiced and practiced just to visualize the night sky as much as possible. A long time after that, the only constellation that I could tell was Orion in the early evening in Beijing. It felt like seeing an old friend in the night sky, seeing his head, his shoulders, his waists, legs and arrow. Ahh, what a relief. What a pleasant encounter.

Afterwards, I was able to recognize more and more constellations without any help and I tried my best to learn and review whenever I can. I would walk into the forest behind my friend’s house; I would stop in the courtyard in my dorm at night; I would stay up late on field trips whenever I’m away from the city, just to see the stars once more.

I started planning for this meteor shower from the beginning of the trip. (Me and my parents are going on a 3-week cross-country road trip from LA to NY going through several big cities and some national parks.) Every night after we came back to the hotel, I would glimpse at the sky to see whether I can see the Milky Way. If the answer is positive, then I would squat in the parking lot or walk away from the lights to search for the familiar constellations high above my head. I woke up one night at 4 and promised my mom to stay outside for only 5 minutes. I set a timer for 5 minutes and started watching the sky around Perseus. Perseus was in the middle of the sky. I saw three meteors flashing by, but I wasn’t even sure whether they were meteors or that I was simply dreaming or really confused. Sometimes when we had to drive back to the hotels at night, I would look out of the car windows and point at the Milky Way, Great Bear, polaris, Scorpio, Cassiopeia and Saturn and explain them to my mom one by one.

Last night we had to drive a little bit at night as well. I was doing the same thing as usual and I saw a meteor falling down from the south sky. It was unexpected yet unforgettable. As soon as I got to the hotel, I pulled out a blanket on the floor and started watching. Gradually I started seeing really bright meteors leaving huge traces on the skies. My mom and dad saw them as well. It was also their first time seeing meteors.

Meteor showers in reality are less traceable than those in the movies, but far more grandiose and breathtaking. It’s way more romantic in that the observer has to be fully committed to see this celestial beauty. Laying on the ground at 3 in the morning, there’s nothing else between me and the universe. It takes some patience but the reward is priceless. The stars shooting from Perseids into all directions in all speeds and sizes. Sometimes it takes a few minutes to see one tiny meteor fainting through the sky; sometimes it takes a few seconds to see bright traces one after another capturing your attention effortlessly. You see the sky that you normally see, but somehow you are expecting something more. You feel so peaceful yet excited all the time. You don’t really know where to expect so you keep scanning to make sure everything’s in sight. You don’t want to make wishes, because the moment when you see it, your wish already comes true.

There’s a saying from a formal Chinese premier called ‘looking at the stars with your feet on the ground’. Obviously it means something different from the literal interpretation, but this is something that I like doing. This is something that I can’t help but loving.

– Morning, Aug 13th, 2015 in Lovell, Wyoming, To my first Perseids meteor shower