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