Friday, December 7, 2012

Shadow Moon

The sky is so clear, blue to the point of absurdity...a faint outline of mottled moon hangs above the tree-line. I am friends with the moon. I have spent many hours, lying flat on my back, grass tickling my neck, staring at it.

Sometimes, where I live, the moon is bashful, hidden behind wisps of cloud...a cotton ball stretched to infinity. The moon hides, appearing in brief flashes, coloring the whole of the cloud-soaked sky. A blanket of vapor. I have never seen this anywhere else.

I always point the moon out to people because, well, some people don't look UP. I'll never understand it. My daughter is impressed that I see deer, frogs, hawks, sunsets. I am teaching her to look. So, I tell people to look at the moon, considering it a favor, and they often look at me like I am insane. There are some things I will never understand.

Past the pigeon palaces and shift-eyed beat cop malices...the lyrics come back when I first awake. I don't know why. My mind resists waking because it likes to play. I don't blame it.

This past week has been one of the most bizarre of my life. I have seen my neighbors cry, rage, laugh, comfort, and accept. None of these things are easy to do. None of it is easy to watch.

I have accepted my age. This week, perhaps for the first time. In exactly two weeks I will be 35. The winter solstice will usher in a new age of epiphanies and shortcomings. I want to help carry furniture, but I have injured my back to the point that I can't. I would still do it, but my wife won't let me. And she's right. The pigeons are coming home to roost.

You pay for your sins and you hope you will be rewarded for your triumphs, but sometimes you get both and sometimes neither. I've spent Christmas Eve in the ER more than anyone should. That's not going to happen this year. I feel a strange, sniveling pride. You take it where you can get it.

You can't go back and revise your life. I'm glad. I would probably change things that shouldn't be changed. I'm happy with the voyage that has brought me here. So what...I've traded some cynicism for a little hope. Cashed in some brain cells. You live with the choices you make. You live with the choices you don't get to make, too.

It's been an odd week, and a dose of sunshine does a lot of good. I am wiser now than I was a week ago. I have seen the power of nature. I have seen the compassion in people. And life goes on. The good parts and the bad. And I wouldn't want it any other way.

2 comments:

  1. That's it really, isn't it? Understanding how to go with the ebb and flow of life, perhaps understanding that there IS an ebb and flow to life. Those creaky, craggy, cobble-stoned pathways trip us up and cause us pain, but my gawd - the journey.

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