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I can’t keep up. 

Every time I turn around there seems to be a new, spectacular astronomical event occurring that everyone seems excited about, yet I consistently miss. Even if I’m standing outside at the correct time.

The latest is yet another supermoon (didn’t we just have one?) and, at a distance of 222,000 miles away, supposedly the closest, making it appear even bigger and brighter.

But wait—there’s more! 

This year, it’s a two-fer as a newly discovered comet, named Tsuchinshan-Atlas, will be in the same neighborhood of the Northern Hemisphere. Scientists tell us the brightness of the moon might obscure part of the comet’s tail and for sure it is helpful to gaze from an area free of light pollution, but it is visible.

I’m also glad to read this supermoon will officially be full and visible by 7:30 p.m. because I’m over 50 and can’t be out past 8 p.m., ya’ll. But at least THIS time, I’ll actually be able to see something, which will be an enormous relief to Paul.

“Aren’t you coming outside?” I’d called to him from the front door the first night of the display of Northern Lights.

“I saw them in Alaska,” he replied, yawning from his chair and his iPad.

“I have too,” I shot back, “but this is different! This is South Carolina! I can’t believe you don’t want to see them.” 

“You go look at them and tell me all about it,” he said dismissively.

Alrighty then, I would! I stood on the knoll in front of the barn and stared at the horizon. Nothing. After a few minutes, I realized the ambient light meant I was staring south at Greer, and I rotated until I faced north. Which meant I was staring straight into the woods. Two owls called together, and I’m pretty sure they were saying, “What a Muldoon…” 

Undeterred, I turned and marched into the undulating field, wishing now I’d thrown on a sweatshirt, and turned my eyes towards Hogback Mountain. 

Nothing.

Remembering what others had done, I jogged back into the house to retrieve my phone.

“Already finished?” Paul said bemusedly, not turning his head.

“You just wait,” I retorted and darted back out the door. 

Cursing myself for forgetting the sweatshirt again and unwilling to go back inside, I stumbled over the horses’ salt block and returned to my vantage point in the field. I adjusted the shutter speed on the phone’s camera as advised and took a few shots slightly above the horizon into the inky darkness. Checking my screen, I gasped— it worked! Firing away, I took several more photographs and marveled over the milky pink hues spread across the nighttime skies.

Clutching my phone like Olympic gold, I made my way, triumphantly, to the house.

“There!” I said gleefully, tossing the phone on the couch. “Told you I’d see them.”

“What was the point of it?” Paul said.

“The point,” I spluttered in disbelief, “was that I was actually living in the present— you know, actually experiencing something real, instead of sitting around, staring at a screen like you.”

“But you didn’t actually see them,” Paul replied, and flipped his tablet around to show a slew of Facebook postings by friends who had all uploaded their own smartphone images of the lights. “You only saw them once you took photographs,” then added unnecessarily, “and then stared at a screen to see them. Like me.”

Checkmate.