How to Draw a Star

First Point

Begin at the bottom left of your page and draw a slanted line upwards to the right.

March 2, 2000

It is the stars I remember.

They are iridescent blue birthstones scattered across the black velvet night. I take a deep breath and hear a faint whisper on the March breeze: hope. One more day—just twenty-four little hours—and I will begin Spring Break. Time to revive my flagging spirit. Time to begin again.

I smile at the other graduate students exiting Radison Hall into the gentle evening, hurrying to their homes and families. I do not hurry. Home is an uncertainty these days, a careful house of cards the kids and I try to keep from toppling over since my husband’s long summer stay behind locked doors at Friends’ Hospital.

The stars wink at me through the clear Chester County air where the lack of ambient light does nothing to dim their glow. Book bag in hand, I head to a stone bench outside Francis Green library and rest my burdens for a few moments.

Home is an uncertainty these days, a careful house of cards the kids and I try to keep from toppling over since my husband’s long summer stay behind locked doors at Friends’ Hospital.

One day more, I think as I heft up the book bag, heavy with the weight of the graduate work I think will save my family, and walk towards High Street and the parking lot at Bull Center.

Soon, there will be fourteen days to heal. To begin again.

The North Star beckons me on.