Inktober Day 8 prompt- Stars

In one of his more contemplative moods, Calvin remarks to Hobbes (in a singularly mature comic strip)  'If people sat outside and looked at the stars each night, I'll bet they'd live a lot differently'. This has resonated with me tremendously because one of the first things I included in my bucket list was roaming along the roads of any city through the night beneath a starlit sky. While this sounds rather poetic and lofty, I think it has to do with my being a night owl (as mentioned several times in the past couple of posts http://littleofthisandabitofthat.blogspot.com/2018/10/inktober-day-6-drooling.html and http://littleofthisandabitofthat.blogspot.com/2018/10/inktober-day-7-prompt-exhausted.html ) who has only experienced the wonders of solitude during the wee hours of the day from the confines of her room. 

I think my fascination for starlit walks also stems from the lyrics of two of my favourite songs by Coldplay- 'Sky full of stars' and 'Yellow'. There is something so liberating about the former, the lyrics in which say 

' 'Cause you're a sky, 'cause you're a sky full of stars
  I'm gonna give you my heart
 'Cause you're a sky, 'cause you're a sky full of stars
 'Cause you light up the path

 I don't care, go on and tear me apart
 I don't care if you do ooh ooh
 'Cause in a sky, 'cause in a sky full of stars
 I think I saw you

 'Cause you're a sky, you're a sky full of stars
 Such a heavenly view
 You're such a heavenly view.'

that it makes me wish that the sight of twinkling stars set against the black canvas of the night sky never give way to sunrise every morning. Of course, this is another of my many flights of lunacy because the sun, at the end of the day, (perhaps that’s not the best of phrases to use in this context) is also a star. 

That, of course, leads me to wonder about dichotomous way in which we all thought of stars of the night sky and the sun when we were young and impressionable children. The sun symbolised all that was energy and heat and was usually drawn as a yellow quarter of a circle in the corner of any picture made on paper. Meanwhile, there was something cool and soothing about the moon and the stars at night and due to this perceptive difference, I never thought about how stars are actually glowing masses of heat much like the sun. In fact, I remember feeling so devastated and shattered when this truth was revealed to me sometime when I was 8 or 9, to the point where I paraded up and down the entire building imparting my newfound knowledge to everyone who dared cross my path (because you see, they would not have pre-disposed knowledge of the nuances of science). 

As we're all aware, the sun is the star that's nearest to us which is why we don't see it as a twinkling white sequin in the sky. Although all stars emanate heat, we associate heat only with the sun and warmer tones such as red, orange and yellow. Besides, given the apparently 'cool' perception we have about the other stars, we almost never use the latter as a metaphor for the same context as the former. Which is what makes the first line of 'Yellow' special for me. It says,

'Look at the stars

Look how they shine for you
And everything you do
Yeah they were all yellow

I came along
I wrote a song for you
And all the things you do
And it was called "Yellow"

P.S. If you have not listened to these songs, it's high time you do. Trust me on this!