April 9, 2013
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Moonlight
I love that I don’t have to know what time it is or what I look like. At the beach there are no mirrors and no watches, just endless waves that make my stare at them hypnotically. What am I looking at? I haven’t seen it yet, but it isn’t my reflection, and I am glad.
I watched a video that said we know 3% of the ocean. THREE. We know more of the moon than of the ocean. And every time I get in that ocean, I wonder about that 97%. Mostly, about if it will eat my toes. I have an irrational fear of being toe-eaten, probably a combination of one scary movie, one dad who would bite my toes when we swam in the lake, and one jellyfish that stung me last year.
That and cows. I’m also afraid of those big beasts that loom on street corners and low at you menacingly. One passed by the beach house twice last night, lowing extra mean. These are not your average black and white pretty-eyed cows; they are the tough Brahmans, the get-out-of-my-way cows that have chased me before. Enough said.
The sky never stops thrilling me-the morning colors, the actual appearance of the sun, the diamond rays it casts early morning, the heated afternoon hidden by sunglasses, the blinking twilight. And then the moon. Rising out of the ocean, it has made no less of an impression than the sun. The full circle glows orange until you see Saturn rise above it, and then it regains its grey/white composure.
David has this computer program to identify the stars from your specific location and time. Click a button, and you transform the night into myths and legends. My two faithful constellations in the southern hemisphere—southern cross and Orion, have now been joined by friends as I find Gemini from Orion’s arrow, and Cyrus from his feet. The main star of the Southern Cross (which reminds me of a kite), is actually the crotch of the centaur, and above it all is a huge ship constellation—the body of which is called Carina.
Dancing in the moonlight—not knowing what I looked like and not caring. Forgetting I am made of different pieces and legs and awkwardness—I was suddenly one: movement and wind and water kissing my ankles coming in and out. The rhythm of waves and music pulsing in me and I was free—free from self-consciousness, 100% whole. No motives or effects or perceptions or expectations. And it left quickly, I couldn’t hold it long.
I returned to thinking of my posture and individual parts that make a whole and what song was this and all the scattered normalness. And I miss it already.
