November 16, 2025

As winter nears, I feel the cold wrap around me like a blanket. I try to loosen its grip, but it whispers, “I’m not as bad as you think. Embrace me like you would the sun.” I search for warmth in the chill of an empty hearth. The cabin is sodden, run-down, and full of vines growing inside. Snowflakes land on my head. My eyes follow the falling snow coming from the clouds.

Looking up, I see an expansive galaxy above me, and the midnight sky feels endless, drawing me in after the falling snow.

The stars take my breath away. I tilt my head all the way up, just like I do to look at a redwood tree, and gaze at the purple sky dotted with tiny balls of light. I find my answer in the view. I trade an old lens for a better one, and rather than stare at the sand filled with black beetles roaming and small scorpions, I see the galaxy ahead. 

The night sky calls my name. The wind whispers it’s time to repair my ladder and climb. The snow reminds me how far I’ve come. My boots leave footprints trailing back to my door.

I lift the old, creaky ladder to the side of my house, let it fall upright against the stucco, praying it stays secure under the night’s new moon.

Yet surely, I can’t keep my head craned upward forever. If I want to reach the sky, I must climb. However slowly I move, if my feet move, my arms reach, and my eyes stay upward, I climb.

After a single gentle breath, I begin this sacred pact with my future self—the astronaut, the pilot, the wanderer—the one who flies instead of lingering in the ruins of a once-cherished log cabin. I commit to seeing no obstacles, only opportunities waiting to unfold their lessons to me. I forget what’s behind me and move forward. And, I pat myself on the back for not remaining as small as the lonely cabin in the woods I was born in, for not ruminating on all the forgotten holidays and celebrations burned to ash at the center of the wooden structure, nor staying stuck on the smoke-stained walls lining it—memories of fire ablaze. All I see are stars. Stars everywhere. And they are my guide into the unknown.

Oh, the rush I feel. I reach a different part of the atmosphere, where the air is thin but my heart is light.

Oh, what a beautiful night.

“Come touch me,” the moon says. And, I climb and climb with all my might.

With a quiet mind and an open heart,

Nicole Asbjorn