We lined up to travel into the past. Or at least, to see into the past.
Different telescopes were situated around the field and queues formed at each. I stepped to the back of the line-esque huddle and let the students go before me. It was nice to see them so eager, and it’s not like the stars were going anywhere. The astronomers had just disclosed some of the images we were seeing were 125 years old. We were seeing the story of the universe years ago.
So I waited patiently to glimpse the rings on Saturn, two of Jupiter’s moons, and a few other constellations the lenses were trained to.
When I stepped to the first telescope, Aung was standing next to it. He was waiting to see my reaction and waiting for me to stand with him while he asked the astronomer his many burning questions. He did this sometimes. He waited until I was with him to talk to adults, afraid he’d misunderstand or be misunderstood, even though his English has been fine as long as I’ve known him. It’s less that he can’t speak the language well and more that he can’t think the language well sometimes.
As we made the rounds to all the telescopes, he ran ahead to get a look, then doubled back to stay with me. Once my turn was over, he pulled me into conversation with the person manning the station, peppering them with questions while I provided clarifications to both parties. Aung has a really interesting way of thinking and often asks things I would never think of. I tried to contain my smile (though looking back I’m unclear why) as I watched Aung learn. My only regret is missing his expressions when he first looked at each scene in the stars— missing watching him discover.
The Setting
We were in Woodgate, NY— the edge of the Adirondacks, about an hour north of Utica. I was volunteering with the Midtown Utica Community Center, helping to host MUCCamp on Long Lake. MUCCamp is a week long summer stayover, essentially free for the students the community center serves. Most of the kids are from refugee families hailing from Thailand, Burma (Myanmar), Somalia, Nepal, Kenya… I say “kids,” but they’re really young adults— mostly high school students in their late teens. Not the typical age group for a summer camp… but nothing about MUCCamp is much in the way of typical.
We have traditions, oh my yes. Campfires, canoe regattas, flagpole ceremonies with trumpeters (I use the term trumpeters loosely… I’m one of them), and impressive Cabin Calls with routines carefully choreographed by the kids. Each of these activities can surely be seen at other camps, but there’s a certain flair— a verve, a pizzaz, if you will— unique to our observance of these customs that is less follow and more honor. And then, of course, there are the traditions that are less common: color runs, scavenger hunts and carnival days.
And the foooood. Breakfasts of creme brulee french toast with caramelized peach syrup, lunches of Pho and rice, and dinners reminiscent of Thanksgiving spreads… also with rice. MUCCamp feels distinctly American. A melting pot of humans from different backgrounds and cultures coming together to enjoy a new-fashioned summer camp that pays tribute to the past and embraces the now.
On this particular evening, the Mohawk Valley Astronomical Society joined us. We walked from the cabins, toting extra layers and snacks, down the long gravelly path to the large field usually reserved for soccer games and camp Olympic competitions. I imagine from above, the field looks like a gaping hole in the woods, but from my perspective on this night, it looked like a haven, secluded and protected by a thick border of trees. I puzzled at the open space— why the trees simply stopped where they did— but delighted in having such a perfect spot to witness the anticipated meteor shower.
After I’d peered through each telescope, I made my way back to where my stuff was piled. Aung had gone to chat with friends, so I shook open one of my blankets, laying it lightly over the grass. I sat down and listened to the voices of the kids floating over the field to me in the darkness. Dialogues of different languages created a musical cacophony that permeated my mind and body and soul. Rich, beautiful, chaotic. A melody of life.
“Miss?” Aung was back. I knew he would be. “Ummm… I don’t—”
“Here.” I handed him one of the extra blankets I’d brought.
“Thanks,” he said. I couldn’t see his face now that the darkness had fully settled in, but I didn’t need to. Aung is easy to read once you get to know him. And I knew him well by this point. I knew how he telegraphed his thoughts and emotions in his voice, his movements, his face. I could hear the sheepish smile in his tone as he accepted the blanket from me.
I expected him to head off to watch the show with some of his teammates— other kids from the soccer team I coached who’d also joined us at camp— but I heard him spread the blanket next to mine. I understood why. He was starting college soon. And even though in the years to come I’d help him move in and out of his dorms, cheer him on in his first and last games as a college athlete, and remain there for anything he needed, as time moved forward I would no longer be his coach or his teacher. At least not in the same sense I had been since he was fourteen.
He’d had such a baby face then. Now he sported a beard. Well, a chin thing, anyway. There was a small patch of something under his bottom lip and beneath that, a long, wispy goatee-like growth. He loved it. I hated it.
Equinoxsss
“I got question, Miss.” I waited. “That guy talk about the stars being from the past. I don’t get it. They not there anymore?”
“Well, some of them might not be.”
“So that guy say a lightyear is how far light travels in a year.”
“Right…”
“What that mean? That like the life of a light in a year? Like how far it go?”
“Yeah… light travels very fast, so it can go a really long distance in an earth year. But some of those stars are so far away, their light needs more than one year to travel to us.”
“What he saying about equinox? I thought that when you can’t see the sun or something.”
“That’s an eclipse.”
“Oh right. So what’s equinox?” His voice emphasized the x. “Sound like something from Harry Potter.”
I laughed. “That’s just nox.”
“Oh yeah! Nox.” Again, he held out the x as if the word were spelled noxsss. “That like, turn off the light, right?”
“Well, it extinguishes the light at the end of your wand.”
“That’s what I said, Miss.”
“It doesn’t turn off the lights. If your wand tip is lit because you used the lumos charm, you extinguish it by saying nox.”
“Whatever, Miss. Same thing.” Light from the flashlight on his phone came on as he tried to get himself situated. “Noxsss,” he said, turning it back off.
I smiled. “You forgot to say lumos when you turned it on.”
“It’s okay, Miss.” It’s okay, Miss. He says that to me a lot. When I try to correct his grammar too much, when I get worried about him, or when I get really excited about something we discuss. It’s his way of telling me to calm down. “So what equinox then?”
“It’s when the sun is lined up with the earth in some kind of way, and it makes our day and night equal… I think.”
“Day and night equal?”
“Yeah, like the same amount of hours.”
“Oh, I get it.” This was another familiar phrase. Anytime I explained something, he’d say, “Oooh— that makes sense,” or “Oh, I get it,” if he understood. If he didn’t follow, he’d say, “That make no sense, Miss,” or “Whatever. It don’t matter.”
“I think the literal translation is equal night,” I added.
“Literal translation?”
“I’m pretty sure the word comes from Latin.”
“Equal night?”
“Yes.”
“And the day is same amount as night?”
“Yes.”
“Oooh— that makes sense! You’re so smart, Miss.” I laughed and got comfortable, snuggling under another blanket I brought.
The Heavens
“It kind of cold, Miss.”
I sighed. “Here.” I threw the blanket I’d been snuggling under over to him.
“Oh! Thankssss.” I heard him lie down and the way his next words traveled to me, I could tell he was staring up at the sky, same as me. “Miss, you believe in heaven?”
“I’m looking at the heavens right now.” I always tried to avoid discussing my personal beliefs. Some students were deeply Christian, some deeply Muslim. Others Buddhist or Hindu. While they didn’t subscribe to the same religion, they appreciated each other’s devotion. Not understanding fully why someone believed in something different didn’t stop them from understanding that they believed in something different. And they respected that. It made sense to them. But a life without religion at all? That was just wrong.
Aung is perceptive, though. And he’d spent enough time with me to intuit that I didn’t have a church or a mosque or a temple. I think this worried him some.
“You know what I mean. You don’t have faith?”
“I have lots of faith.”
Sensing the direction I was headed, he cut in, “I mean faith in God.”
“Do you?” He knew what I was doing, turning the question back on him, but he let it go.
As we lay there, mesmerized by the twinkling lights years away from us, he started recounting stories he’d learned at the mosque— tales of the prophets in the Qur’an and parables he’d been taught as a kid. He told me of the whisper cat and the tale of the fox and the tiger, and he told me of the seven layers of heaven, or Jannah, that he’d studied in Muslim school.
“Seven layers?” I asked. I wondered if that’s where the dessert got its name.
“Yeah. Higher number the better. I think.”
He described what he remembered about each one. I watched the stars and caught the occasional meteor shoot across the inky black above as he talked into the night. He told me about the layer for even those who did bad things, but still believed— still had faith. He told me fasting during Ramadan got you into a higher layer, and that good deeds were required if you wanted to be on a “really good level.” I don’t know how much time passed. An hour? Two? Aung went on and on about the fables and the importance of faith.
I knew in part he was trying to convince me to believe what he believed, but I didn’t mind so much. I knew he just wanted to make sure my afterlife was pleasant.
When he talked about the highest level, he said, “That for the really good people, I guess. But really good people who believe.”
“What if you’re a really good person, but you don’t believe?”
His next words were slightly louder; he’d turned his head toward me. “Don’t worry, Miss. I think you done enough good that if you just say you believe right before you die, you get in. High level.”
I was touched. But I couldn’t help but ask, “Isn’t it wrong to lie?”
He sighed heavily. “Miss. It right before you die. You’ll mean it.”