Tonight (3/9/2020) is a full moon, I knew that but had forgotten or didn’t care. I was sitting in our kitchen with my daughter. We were working on her homework when she noticed it. She saw it through our kitchen window rising. I don’t remember what she said. Something about how big the moon looked. It was impressive. It wasn’t just how big it looked while low on the horizon. It was orange. I was struck by it and excited. We went out our back door to look. it wasn’t enough. We live four streets up the hill from a boat ramp. We go down there to see sunrises and to look at the moon every so often. This was going to be one of those times. I was wanting to get there so quickly that I didn’t even put sneakers on. I left in my slippers. When you see people out in stores with slippers and pajamas on…that is not me. I am the person who mocks the people who go out in public with slippers on. Tonight I drove down to the boat ramp with slippers on and got out to look at the orange full moon rising and to take pictures of it. The moon wasn’t orange in my pictures. I am not well enough equipped or skilled enough to get a picture that comes close to capturing how fabulous it was.
We didn’t drive straight home. We drove along the water and stopped again at another good spot. The moon was clearly orange and there were dark areas on the left side of it easily visible. I was going to take another picture but it seemed futile. I turned to the back seat and talked to my daughter about how moments like that were why we can’t live looking at our phones all the time. It’s fun to try to capture a picture when the moon looks so spectacular, but we were seeing it right there in that moment and that is living.
A few hours later, I went again to the back door to check on the moon and its progress. It was higher in the sky. Maybe 20 or 25 degrees up from the ground. It was bright and round and there were clouds everywhere in the sky. It was still. The clouds weren’t moving. They were just hanging there and the bare tree branches stood out black in front of the clouds and the brightness of the moon.
I was in awe of the moon and in awe of all of it and how it all works. We are on a planet that rotates and moves. The moon is moving with us and rotates and spins around us. It’s all so ridiculous. It’s also so much more real than most of what we deal with daily in our silly, little human lives.
I am not in awe of our politics and politicians, of our petty bigotries or our greedy consumerism. We are little specks on the earth’s surface running back and forth, moving our little piles of things from one place to another place.
The earth will spin without us. The moon rose tonight despite our viral worries. There will be no cancellations of celestial events.