I am calm as I slide the eyepiece into position. It’s a calm that has been inside me for fifty years. It started one warm still night when the world was a place of unnamed wonder. Complaining and squirrely I bounced gently in my grandfather’s arms as he carried me outside. “Guardare le stelle,” he said to me, holding me up six inches closer to the night sky. The stars are close enough to try and grab. “Guardare le stelle,” he repeated in a quiet mantra. The universe chimed brilliantly silently and fifty years later I remove the lens cap.