Lunar Appreciation Fest

Shadows all around you as you surface from the dark

Emerging from the gentle grip of night's unfolding arms

Darkness, darkness everywhere, do you feel all alone?

The subtle grace of gravity, the heavy weight of stone

You don't see what you possess, a beauty calm and clear

It floods the sky and blurs the darkness like a chandelier.

You Are the Moon, The Hush Sound

We were driving home from shooting last month and the sky was driving me crazy. Even though it was nine o'clock at night, the sky was a greyish pink. "Why is it so light outside?" I kept asking over and over. It really did look like that space of time before the sunrise stars, when the sky slowly starts to lighten while it's still for the most part dark. There were clouds that night, so I never found out. Not until the next month, this month, on the way home from the market when I was marveling at the light blueness of the sky even though it was dark outside. I saw the moon.

I know it's poetic in the most cliche of ways, but I never really realized how lovely the moon was.

One of the things I love best about October is the giant harvest moons, the yellow ones that seem to take up the entire horizon some nights. One thing I can appreciate about that wretched period from the end of winter to the very beginning of spring is when you can see the moon in the sky during the day. Mom asked me on Friday, "Wouldn't it be cooler if heaven was on the moon and not in an alternate dimension?" I disagreed with her resolutely, saying, "There's nothing special about the moon. The moon we can understand, heaven we can't." 

But as I look out the window and see my entire backyard lit up by the reflected light of the moon, the moon is more fantastic than I had originally thought.