My father placed a blanket on the grass. As we parked ourselves on it, he encouraged me to look up at the night sky.
I glanced upwards. It didn’t look like much to me at first.
But then my father started pointing at the little specks illuminating the darkness.
See that? It’s Orion’s belt. And over there is the big dipper.
I stared on, struggling to see the patterns in the stars. I was only four years old, more prone to aimless daydreaming than structured visualization.
Yet, I still recognized how special this moment was. I idolized my father, but I didn’t get to spend as much time as I wanted to with him.
Now, here we were. Our backs to the ground, our eyes fixed on the vastness of space. It was quiet. It was comfortable. It was mesmerizing.
And I never wanted to stop looking up.
A few years later, I was in the middle of a school day when my mother showed up to sign me out of class.
She explained that my father had gotten injured on his way to work. He had slipped on some ice and fractured a couple vertebrae in his back during the ensuing fall.
My mother had scooped me from school early so that we could help look after him.
My father would ultimately be OK. But through his arduous recovery, my father kept reminiscing on one moment from his injury.
As he lay prone on the sidewalk, my father remembered looking up. He saw the pale blue of the morning sky. He saw the tops of the tree branches. He saw a few rogue birds who hadn’t migrated south for the winter.
It was as if my father was back staring up at the stars again. Indeed, the world around him faded away in that moment. My father felt no pain and sensed no panic.
He was at peace. And that sense of peace helped carry him through.
Looking up will do that.
Roughly a decade after all this, I went to Italy on a family vacation. A few days into the trip, I found myself inside the Sistine Chapel.
I was a teenager by now, full of confidence and oblivious to the lessons of my past. So, I was equal parts annoyed and perplexed when I was urged to glance upwards to the frescos on the ceiling.
Why were those painted all the way up there? I asked my parents as we left the vestibule. It makes no sense.
My parents offered up an answer that I can’t recall. And we moved on through the Vatican.
These days, I realize how misguided my question was. Indeed, the placement of the art was part of what made it so special — and what continues to spark amazement to this day.
Michaelangelo defied death to paint the elaborate scenes. After all, there were no automated bucket lifts in the 16th century, only wooden scaffolds.
The artist took this risk willingly to create a masterpiece. And he dared us to cast our gaze upwards to take it in.
We’ve done so in the Sistine Chapel — for centuries.
But it has become the exception, not the rule.
I had just finished a set of sit ups at the gym when I lay back on the workout bench.
There were two more sets to go, but I needed a moment to recover.
As I lay there, feeling the burning in my abs and thighs, I studied the ceiling. The banks of recessed florescent lights. The electrical conduit covers. The flat, even surface denoting the top of the room. And the white coat of paint covering it all.
It looked so blasé, so ordinary, so sterile. And I felt a bit wrong for staring up at it.
I might wax poetic about looking up at the stars, the tree branches, or the frescos. But staring in that direction has fallen out of favor. Indeed, we’re more likely to glance horizontally at our surroundings, or hunch over to read the smartphones in our hands.
Looking up is reserved for the compromised moments. When we’re counting sheep in bed, or to recover our muscles for the next set of reps. The vertical view is but temporary, and hardly worthy of illustration. So, we don’t bother to make that view notable.
But perhaps we should.
You see, our fixation with horizontal vistas has its limits. There is a sense of awe that comes with looking toward the horizon. And there’s a sense of adventure in heading off to see what’s beyond it.
Still, the truth of the matter is that nearly every accessible corner of this planet has been explored. Someone else has been to where we’re going. Someone else has uncovered the mysteries in our midst.
Looking up has no such baggage. The law of gravity proves that few have headed to where we now stare, and we’re unlikely to head there ourselves.
It’s our imagination that must run wild when staring at the vast expanses above us. The stars, the birds, the tree branches — they all provide a launching point. The rest of the journey lies between our ears.
Of course, we can’t always be out in the open. Many times, we find ourselves with a roof over our heads.
Such structures can block our view of the vast expanses above us. But they needn’t stymie our imaginations as well.
Michaelangelo was onto something when he wandered onto that scaffold with his paintbrush. He recognized that a ceiling is more than a protective edifice. It can be a canvas to what lies beyond — if we care to provide the inspiration.
It’s time that we follow his lead. That we view the act of looking up as more than a novelty case or a last resort. And that we prime ourselves to make such a view worth our while —regardless of where we take it in.
Looking up can yield some powerful perceptions. It’s time that we unlock them.