Wishing on a star

Last week was the annual Perseid meteor shower that often gives a lovely display of 'falling stars'. It promised to be a good one as the viewing conditions were pretty much perfect: a new 'early to bed' moon and a cloudless night meant that there would be dark clear skies. The Bulgarian village where we are living is far from a big town and has very little 'light pollution'.

We were hosting a couchsurfing friend from Israel and together with him and our neighbour Dancho, Lielle and I set out a large inflatable mattress in the grassy lane that joins on to our house and laid back to enjoy the show. Although we were out pretty early and well before the peak we saw maybe 20-30 in a couple of hours.

I told our neighbour that he should make a wish each time he saw one and asked what he was wishing for. He replied quite simply that he doesn't feel he needs to wish for anything. He has good health, good friends, and everything else he needs. And this reminded me just why we decided to make this move in the first place. Our lives so often become one big wish list of things that we want. Often they are unattainable or if we do attain them we quickly become obsessed with something else. How refreshing it is to just live in the moment and enjoy what we already have and to really appreciate it.