On the right side of the photo, a few bare branches curve upward toward the sky like fingers. Not a single leaf clings to them, so even the joints of the branches are fully exposed. At the upper left, a tree thick with leaves covers about a third of the frame in black, and between that black and the other black, a navy sky opens in a long vertical strip.
The lower part of the sky is a slightly brighter blue, deepening as it rises until, at the very top corner of the frame, it is almost navy blue. The stars are scattered past counting.
To see a sky like this you have to tip your head back. The moment you do, the front of the neck stretches long, and the jaw that has been pushed toward a screen all day returns to where it belongs. The shoulders drop a little on their own.
The breath that was moving shallowly only in the upper chest changes at this point too. The eyes lose anywhere to focus. The stars are too far away to be something the eyes can focus on.
People are usually uneasy in an unfocused state. Because if you are not looking at something precisely, it feels like falling behind.
Tonight, before turning off the light, it would be fine to go to the window and look up for just three minutes. It does not matter if no stars are visible. Like that curved branch in the photo, it is enough that your gaze is stretching toward some empty place.
For the first ten seconds nothing seems to be there, and then around twenty seconds in, points that were not there appear one by one. That is about how long it takes for the eyes to adjust to the dark.
You can also move the same motion into the middle of washing dishes. Stopping partway through rinsing a bowl, turning off the tap, and lifting your head once toward the kitchen window. Then you can check the force that had gathered in your jaw.
Whether the back teeth were clenched together, or the upper and lower were slightly apart. You check, turn the water back on, and that is all.
The trees at the bottom of the photo are still black, and in the sky above them the stars remain.
