Dispassionate Moon

"There is something haunting in the light of the moon; it has all the dispassionateness of a disembodied soul, and something of its inconceivable mystery."

Joseph Conrad

I went to the Japanese Moon Festival last night. I had been taking photographs all day and decided to stay for the festival, which falls during my special every year, but usually I am rushing home to kids or husband or Elias or something. This year I had no hurry, nowhere really to go.

The paper lanterns bobbed on wire strung up with bamboo poles. Several hundred people wandered the paths with tea and boiled dumplings to listen to various readings of poetry, incantations, and eerie music played on intricately carved flutes. I wandered the gardens with my camera and tripod, shooting whatever images caught my attention. The mood was somber, the night reflecting green from all the foliage under the full moon.

I stopped to photograph the moon at one point, and a 30ish man nearby said, "Stand by me, the view is best here." I looked at him, handsome, friendly, and wondered what it would have been like to come with him, to watch the moon with someone who did such things, star gaze, moon watch, listen to chilling pipe music and deep drum cadences. I photographed the moon and he seemed sorry to see me go, alone with two other couples. But I had enough to think about, with my recovery from Elias and still the guitar player to settle with. I had hoped the guitar player would want to come, but a quick phone call made it clear we'd meet later that night if I wanted to see him.

I did not stay in the gardens for the entire festival, hot and anxious and weary from four hours of shooting families. I met the guitar player and he stayed with me, and as is our custom, we did not really speak of the distance between us, but merely kept going, one hour to the next, with dinner and music and random conversation. I said to him at one point, "You know, we have absolutely nothing in common."

He lay still, as if thinking, and agreed with his silence. Then he sat up. "Music," he said. "We both love music."

I showed him my images of the lanterns and the moon this morning, bringing my camera into bed and displaying them on the LCD. "Those are nice," he said, and patted my shoulder. "Hey, it's time for me to go."

But the moon came slowly up in all her gentle glory, and the stars looked out, and through the small compass of the grated window, as through the narrow crevice of one good deed in a murky life of guilt, the face of Heaven shone bright and merciful.

Charles Dickens

Funny Tree Crashes

Sometimes God hands you a funny moment, as if to say--laugh, God damn it!

So I am running this morning. I listen to power songs that make me run harder: Puddle of Mudd, Maroon 5.

The streets are laden with fog and even though it is midmorning, the lamps burn ghostly balls of hazy light overhead. The electricity is wasted, though, as the incandescent glow cannot penetrate the heavy clouds. My footsteps thudding on the asphalt in this gray world seem to echo straight into oblivion.

Fall hovers again, retaining its mild chill even as summer struggles to press down from above, leaving the air heavy and humid, oppressive. My legs feel cold as the air rushes around my pumping muscles, but still a trickle of sweat falls between my shoulder blades. My body can't decide which zone to address so it kicks back and ignores temperature-related impulses. I am half hot, half freezing.

About a mile into this particular path, I approach a lengthy steep hill. This grade, about 1/4 mile in length and inclined to the point that you run as if stair stepping, kicks my ass every day. Only once have I tackled it all the way from base to peak, and that was a month ago, before all this happened, before I became so heavy and tired all the time that even walking such a hill became more taxing than my body could manage.

But today it is cool, and although I have endured three difficult emotional days, I start trudging up, refusing to let my footsteps slow to a walk, but lift my knees with brutal drive.

Halfway up I think I might collapse in a heap, but a man--a fine-looking man--steps out of his van touting electrical services and leans against his bumper to watch. This is more than enough motivation for me and and although I feel ungainly, breathing ferociously and contorting my face in pain and determination, I keep going. He watches me as I pass and I feel his eyes on me even after, so I take on the entire hill until I reach the stop sign at the top and decide enough!

I want to laugh out loud that I have conquered the demon path again, but a quick glance proves he still is watching so I press on around a corner and out of his view. I hear a door slam and figure he's finally moved on with his job.

I take another turn and go down a silent street, old and unfashionable, with enormous trees overhanging like an evergreen arch. Leaves fall in leisurely paths from the molting branches and into piles on the street. I jump in a few but the fog and dew have rendered them wet masses, so the satisfying crunch is replaced by a soggy sucking sound.

I intend to pick up running again at the base of the hill, but just keep walking, listening to Etta James' song At Last and trying not to remember how I had downloaded that song in January, when Elias swore his wife would not return to the states, and our time had come. I keep walking even along the flat segment of my running path, unable to beat the heaviness that has descended once again, and trudge along the gutter by the curb.

The houses along this street are all worth half a million or more, large and imposing with enormous lawns. I duck around several groundskeeping service trailers, the drone of industrial mowers breaking the silence of the morning. The fog is burning off and the lamps extinguish one by one, almost in tandem with my arrival. A young Hispanic man pushes an oversized mower before him, muscles bulging from a red shirt with the sleeves torn out, a thatch of thick black hair ruffling restlessly from the jet of exhaust coming off the back of the machine. He smiles at me and we lock eyes. I return the smile, tipping my head in a shy flirt. He keeps watching me until the mower abruptly stops and he smashes into the handle. The mower crunches and splatters red petals as it careens over a short stone border, into a flower bed, and crashes into an oak tree.

I do not burst into giggles or in any way acknowledge the gaffe, just wave and walk on, not daring to turn around as two other lawn workers dash to the scene of the disaster. Only when I turn into my own yard, pass the carport and cross between the stone pillars to my entry way do I sit on the ground and howl with laugher.