Before moving to Arizona, I lived my entire adult life in the bright lights of urban big cities: Kansas City, Atlanta, LOs Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C. I stopped going outside and looking up at the sky because there were no stars. In fact, it felt as if there were no night, just an eerie, hazy, pinkish glow after the sunset.

I longed for the big skies and starry nights of the Western states I had vacationed and traveled in over the years before I retired: Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona.

So in 1992, lured by the incomparable landscape of the Sonoran Desert, I retired and moved to Chandler, AZ where I stayed for 26 years before we downsized and moved to a 55+ community in Mesa in less developed territory.

Turns out East Mesa is not only about protecting open space and enforcing noise decibel limits, it also values dark skies. I became acquainted with the roadrunners and cactus wrens, coyotes, lizards and javelinas that frequented the neighborhood, feeling a kinship with these creatures. I began hiking multiple times a week in the fresh, clear air, sometimes under a full moon without a flashlight, awestruck by what twinkled above.

I’d walk outside, coming to know the night sky in different seasons, discovering silence and stillness and stars. I call it moonbathing. I traveled unlit roads to places where the night sky was still intact, including Southern Arizona, where I saw the dazzling Milky Way for the first time in years. I've found that when I travel to areas that are brightly lit—even if briefly—it is jarring.