Yellowstone

I had my AirPods in, trying, fruitlessly, to drown out the incessant cries of unsatisfied children. Stuffed in a rented 20-seater—a Ford Transit, if I recall correctly—with 4 other families, we were travelling through the wood-encompassed paths near Yellowstone during an almost unremarkable night. The occasional glint of a glimmering, obsidian orb just beyond the treeline only served to amplify the infants’—including my brother’s—unsatiated desires and, subsequently, their screeching voices. What they longed for, I am yet to discern even after a year. A toddler’s mind is a mystery, fleeting yet energetic, impressionable yet resolute, a whole set of oxymorons. Perhaps, so was mine, just with an outward visage of composure. I assume that is what sets us apart from them, their vocal protests and furies, and our silent musings and sulks. I haven’t yet decided what is better, but back then in that instant, my mind was resolutely, beyond-doubt convinced that it was the latter.

Relief would soon fill the van, however, when my father called out from the driver’s seat, “vandhiduvom, 5 minutes-la. Get ready to get down.” With an almost audible sigh, the distress in the parents’ faces and mine—then, I preferred the identity of an adult—began to evaporate. The ensuing five minutes were allowed to lapse in a quiet manner without much action, the silence only broken by the periodic shrill of developing voices yet to grasp the concepts of language. 

As declared, the van came to a gradual stop in front of a presumably spacious cabin shrouded in darkness. I closed my eyes in an expression of weariness, the over 22-hour drive from Dallas taking its toll on me, but as I looked out into the woods I saw, once more, a twinkling pair of inky spheres staring back at me. Unlike the ones I saw on the road, these weren’t short-lived; they stayed for a while, waiting, but deep within the woods, before disappearing back into the darkness. I remembered a passage I had studied for Academic Decathlon—a competition that had quietly shaped how I noticed the world—about edge habitats and how human expansion drives wildlife deeper into shrinking woods. Perhaps that is why the soft pools of black stay hidden, deep into the forest away from our troubles.

I moved on, not paying much heed to the brief interaction, for there was now work to do: lugging luggage, shifting suitcases, and all one does to settle into their temporary residence. And it was tiring work, particularly after the taxing ride. I moved bags one by one, placing them into the designated rooms lined with reminders of wilderness—mounted antlers, paw prints etched in wood, painted scenes of what once roamed freely: frogs, snakes, falcons, and bison. It was almost ironic how even in a national park, I had to enjoy animals through a painting. Nonetheless, I dutifully completed my tasks, handing off the final box to my mother in due time. Yet this is when I saw it, the plainness of the night gave way to one of glittering dots splattered over the sky like an artist's canvas, pinpricks of bright white complemented by a dim halo, spaced unevenly yet creating a symmetry of its own.

And yet, in that moment under Yellowstone’s sky, I was reminded of another one—half a world away. I recalled the night sky in the outskirts of Chennai. The young me would chase after it, waiting for the mechanical cuckoo to screech nine times, then taking off: up the stairs to the second floor, out to the little patio, up the metallic stairs to the terrace, and up a spindly ladder to the top of the water tank, the highest point of our home. There, the night sky would greet me with its characteristic obliviousness, indifference, wishing to hide what it really desires to convey. I would always decrypt its loving message, however—those same five stars that were always there forming a luminous grin, speaking volumes in their twinkles. There were no railings up there, nothing to stop a fall from forty feet, but in the night’s embrace, I felt safe, alive, and anchored. 

And now, amidst the forest, away from the lights of the ever-expanding cities, I asked myself, under my breath, with a tenderness I had long believed I had lost, “When did I stop looking up?”

Perhaps the stars never left. Perhaps I did.

We grow older—consumed by deadlines, devices, the warm buzz of artificial skies. The suburban haze becomes our ceiling, blotting out the wild, unfiltered sky we once knew.

In school, we study light pollution—terms like skyglow and glare, footnotes in a textbook. But no diagram can teach you the ache of a silent sky. No chart can measure the loss of wonder.

That night in Yellowstone, I remembered how dark the dark could be—how honest. The night didn’t cry, didn’t ask for attention. It simply was. And in its quiet, the stars returned. Not as ghosts or memories, but as themselves. I wondered how many children would grow up without ever seeing the Milky Way, without learning to find Orion by heart. How many would look up, only to be met with LED glare and a moon blurred beyond meaning?

Or worse—how many wouldn’t look up at all?

Despite my musings, the trip carried on, with no shortage of laughter nor hikes and the occasional silence only found in the wild. Yet, even on the day I am set to leave, I felt incomplete, a part of the journey yet to undertake, a portion of the path yet to traverse.

On the last day, we were set to leave in the middle of the night. Like a host seeing off unwelcome guests, I imagined the forest exhaling a quiet sigh of relief with every breeze that swept through. The cold bit at our skin, not in warning, but in parting.

As I stood outside one final time, trying to take it all in—to memorize every glow, every spark—two gleaming gems looked back at me from the woods. Eyes. The same eyes as before. But this time, they came closer. In the faint light—half cast by the moon, half by the idling car—I saw it clearly. A deer. One half of its face aglow like a gentle spirit, the other lighted with a sharp light, almost monstrous. Yet I knew its true nature, not one picked by us.

It stepped forward out of the treeline, crossing the boundary between its world and mine. And for a moment, we stood still, watching each other. Its eyes seemed to plead—not in fear, but in fragile hope.

I stepped toward it. It stepped back. Not in rejection, but in reminder: trust is not easily regained. The ancient contract between our worlds had long been broken. And still, as it turned to disappear into the night, it looked back once—just once—hopeful that we might change.

And so I made a quiet vow under Yellowstone’s sky: I will be part of the change. Not just for me—but for every child who deserves to look up and discover the world around them.