Moon Children

I had - didn't we all? - a brief fling with Jack Kerouac in college, imagining life on the road as a glorious and high adventure, the ultimate freedom ride.  Romance lay glittering just around the next corner on The Road, romance and independence and emancipation from the ordinary and the dull.  I would find kindred souls and join them.  I would abdicate family and routines and the rat race.  I would fly on wings of my own making and be free. 

Lying awake at almost four in the morning, I listen to a far off train whistle and imagine shucking it all and hopping a slow moving freight.  It's been a long time since I was a free spirit and there are those sleepless times when unattached and possession-less sounds like a good thing.  Florida, I think to myself, I'd go to Florida and sleep on a beach.  Pick oranges and go barefoot.  It's almost enough to put me back asleep but it's interrupted by a staccato trill from the kitten who notices I'm awake and comes from nowhere to make her presence known.  Sharp little claws sink into my shoulder and the barefoot beach and orange grove scene fades abruptly.  Real life - all trilling and energetic eight pounds of it - intervenes with a vengeance.  I decide it's better to get up and write than lie here and piss and moan about my sleep deprivation so I crawl out of bed and let the dogs out.  That's when I notice the moon, high and hazy in the sky with transparent veils of clouds like cobwebs moving across it swiftly.  The edges lighten and darken, darken and lighten and for a second or two I feel almost hypnotized watching it.  It was only later that I realized I was watching the process of a lunar eclipse, what many call a Blood Moon. 

“The moon is a loyal companion.
It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human.
Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.”

Tahereh Mafi