I watch the stars. I sit out night after night waiting for the clouds to part for a glimpse of our celestial neighbors. My parents tell me they could see more stars. They say the sky was aglow with them. I don't care. I don't care that the lights of the city obscure those little pinpoints of light that are so far away that the distance is literally unimaginable. I don't care.

I like the city. I've grown up outside it my whole life.

I've been told that the most beautiful sight from space isn't the stars. I've been told that it is Earth. I've been told that watching lights wink on as they pass the horizon is fantastic. I've been told that a city from space is like a sea of stars in its own right. So I've been told.

Tonight I watch the stars. Tonight I watch them fade into view after our closest star passes from view. Tonight I wait.

My eyes shift downward. They scan the horizon. It is almost time for what I've been waiting for.

It comes, a small jewel racing from horizon to horizon. The ISS, the international space station, orbits at around three-hundred forty kilometers and roughly seventeen thousand miles per hour, making it's orbital period about once every ninety-one minutes. That means it orbits the Earth sixteen times a day. I don't care. I just like how pretty it is across that sky.

It has been four minutes and that glimpse of human achievement has gone from my sight. My spine is chilled as it is every time I look up and see it. This time it was at about twenty degrees high in the southwest sky. I won't see it for a while. I don't care. I know it will be back.

I watch the stars. I sit out night after night waiting for the clouds to part for a glimpse of our celestial neighbors. My parents tell me they could see more stars. I tell them that one day I'll be there.