sister moon
PART ONE
When I was very small, the moon followed me everywhere. I fancied that she had a liking for me, a unique affinity that made her want to go where I went, to see the things I saw. It made me feel special. As far as I could tell, after all, nobody else had a trillion-ton satellite tagging along with them everywhere. She even followed me when we were on vacation. Sometimes she hid behind trees because she was tricky that way, but I always found her, peeking out from behind the branches. Her brightness gave her away every time.
As I grew a bit older, my feelings for the moon developed into a sort of personal attachment. I fancied her to be something like a big sister, and I took to calling her my Sister Moon. I knew for a fact that she loved me best — that much was obvious, because she sat outside my house every night, watching me sleep. I knew that was something only big sisters would do. They were supposed to watch their younger siblings sleep to make sure they were still breathing, and if for some reason they stopped (I wasn’t quite clear on exactly how this would happen, but I presumed that it was either fear or heart disease), you were supposed to get frantic and rip out your hair and vow to fulfill your little sister’s dreams and wishes. That was how things worked.
When I was in second grade, I decided I’d eventually go to college with my Sister Moon, and though even my seven-year-old mind dimly realized the complexities involved, I didn’t trouble myself with the details. I figured only that it would entail my becoming an astronaut and being away from home quite a bit. I hoped that my family wouldn’t mind this arrangement, and on occasions when I was seized by a fit of rational thinking, I’d simply grit my teeth and say to myself that even if they did object strongly and say things like “never” or “over my dead body,” my Sister Moon and I would go to college together anyway. I fancied that our sisterhood would be so strong and so touching that they’d forgive us and start to cry and immediately give us their approval. Ultimately, however, I decided it didn’t matter if they objected because we were so resolved in our bond that nothing could stop us. If they tried, I knew that I’d simply die, and although I still didn’t comprehend death, I had a strong enough grasp of the notion to understand that once it happened to me I’d be transported to Heaven where there were no bicycles or movie theaters, and where you were forced to spend all your time playing harps and singing hymns. I found all this so curious that one day I spent an entire afternoon pondering whether or not I could still eat things like candy and ice cream in Heaven, and I finally came to the devastating conclusion that sweets were probably not allowed there because they gave you cavities, and it somehow just didn’t seem appropriate for people to be romping around Heaven singing praises and hallelujah and whatnot while their teeth were rotting away.
I know. I was a kid with a lot of thoughts. Anyway, back to my story.
I took to spending the evenings sitting on the porch banister, gazing up at my Sister Moon and tracing her figure in the air before me. I liked her best when she was full because she always seemed much closer, looming in the sky just beyond my reach. At the time, I didn’t think much of the stars. They were sort of accessories to my Sister Moon.
Every month or so she would start getting smaller and smaller, and then for an awful day or two, she wouldn’t be there at all. Those few days were always the worst for me. I harbored a secret fear each time she disappeared that she might never come back, and those days I would spend more time than usual outside on the porch, straining my eyes against the darkness for that thin sliver of white which was proof that my Sister Moon was merely hiding. When she came back I was all laughter and smiles. To celebrate her return I would run out onto our side yard and dance under her, singing and shouting at the top of my lungs until my family or the neighbors began to complain about all the noise.
My second-grade teacher was a lovely older woman named Myrtle Erman. She was an extremely kind and gifted educator, and she loved books of all types. It was there in her classroom that I came across A History of Our Sky: The Moon, which had photos of the moon and the stars and stuff from different places all over the world. I spent many an hour looking through that book at pictures of my Sister Moon, and there were quite a few that I especially liked. My Sister Moon rising over the pyramids. My Sister Moon hovering just to the left of the torch of the Statue of Liberty. My Sister Moon sitting atop Mount Vesuvius. My Sister Moon looked good in any picture. She was very photogenic.
Anyway, The Moon was one of those really big books that pretty much took up half the table. It was very expensive because it was very heavy. When guests came to the school, all the refreshments had to be crowded onto one end of the table so that the guests could be all admiring of the big book at the other end. If anybody wanted to take a look at the pictures it was a real problem, because when you opened the book it was so big that nothing else would fit on the table at all. I couldn’t understand why the school system would want to own something so impractical; it sort of fell along the same lines as that cabinet of nice pencils we were never permitted to use. Just the same, I felt that nobody would mind me snipping a few pictures out of the book, and barely anyone besides me ever looked through it.
I spent an entire recess going through it page by page, cutting out my favorite pictures. When Miss Hammond, an assistant secretary to Principal Ott, found me sprawled on the classroom floor, surrounded by tattered pages and cutouts of the moon, she couldn’t stop crying.
Overreaction, that’s what Miss Hammond was all about. I just don’t think she understood sisterly bonds.
Out of pure malice, she confiscated the remains of The Moon along with all the pictures I’d cut out. I don’t know what she did with them and frankly, she wouldn’t tell me. I never saw them again. I felt that this was cruel and spiteful of her, and told her so in as many words, but she just said that I was being cheeky and threatened to give me a spanking. A spanking?? She was always threatening to give kids a spanking. I guess she just didn’t realize how much it weakened her authority to just throw the threat around like that.
In any case, I became very vocal about not having any moons to put on my stuff. At first, my complaints met with little success. Miss Hammond, it seemed, was still sore about The Moon incident. I didn’t let this faze me though, and I started bringing up the issue at the snack table every afternoon. I’d wait for a lull in the conversation and the snack trades to be complete and then I’d clear my throat, look about expectantly, and announce, “I need some moons.” Often my classmates pretended like they hadn’t even heard me, and I would have to repeat myself several times before they’d respond. “Eat your cookie,” they’d finally say. Or sometimes, “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”
It took a while to convince anyone that I was serious, but in the end, my hard work paid off. One afternoon, my mother gave me one of those glow-in-the-dark star sets that included a little moon. Victory! I threw the stars all over a notebook and put the moon directly in the center. Then I crawled underneath a blanket and stared hard at the sad, lone little moon.
Something was wrong. Just one wouldn’t be enough. I needed more.
On my next trip downtown with my mom, I was caught by a salesman in the school supply aisle at Jupiter, stuffing all the moons from the individual bags into a separate packet, which I intended to purchase. This wasn’t easy, as it involved digging through a bagful of stars to find the single little moon in each one, but I was getting along pretty well when the employee appeared and asked me what I thought I was doing. I looked up at him. There were glow-in-the-dark stars all over the floor.
“I only want the moons,” I explained patiently.
He stared at me for a moment. “You can’t do that,” he said. “That’s not acceptable. Each set is supposed to have only one moon.” He took the packet from me and started putting the moons back into the star sets, all the while rambling on about how my parents should’ve taught me not to open up things in stores. I knew he was probably just jealous at not having thought of doing the same thing himself. A bag full of glow-in-the-dark moons. Who wouldn’t be excited by such a possibility?
Just then I realized the implication of my thought and my heart started to pound faster. I clenched my fists, overcome by a wave of jealousy so powerful I almost fell over. How dare he! I was just about to kick him in the shins as hard as I could and run for my life when Mom arrived. She gave me that “Just wait until we get home” look, and dragged me away down the aisle, apologizing over her shoulder to the employee. I gave him my hardest shooting dagger looks, but I didn’t resist being dragged away. I wouldn’t have regretted fighting him over my Sister Moon, even though he was more than twice my size.
That evening I realized that I’d exhausted all other possibilities, so I decided at last that I could only rely on my talents to get the pictures I needed of my Sister Moon. I resolved to try drawing her in Mr. Emler’s art class. It was difficult at first. I mean, yes, I could get the shape of her just right (I always drew her when she was full), but how to capture the beauty of her face, the shadows of light and dark that my brother Dan once told me were called craters?
Incidentally, I had a strong revulsion to that word. It sounded too harsh to me, tantamount to saying that my Sister Moon was riddled with scars or caverns, and I insisted thenceforth on calling them beauty marks, a word which I’d heard Mom use about a mole on the side of her friend’s face.
“That’s a lovely picture you’ve drawn, Diane,” Mr. Emler said one afternoon as he passed by my desk. “Is it a marble?”
A marble?? I was so offended I could barely speak. “It’s the moon,” I said at last, half-debating whether or not to leap up onto my chair and growl in his face.
“What are these colored swirls here?” he asked, placing a finger on my drawing.
Any representation of my Sister Moon, even a crude one done in pencil and crayon, was in my eyes next to holy. I couldn’t abide him touching my picture and quickly yanked the paper away.
“They’re her beauty marks,” I blurted out. How could he be so obtuse? That was completely self-evident. A marble indeed. Mr. Emler just couldn’t recognize true beauty. I intoned that his attitude was directly related to him being unmarried, so I decided instead that I ought to pity him, a poor deprived man that he was, surrounded only by other teachers and an occasional parent or two. In my most magnanimous tone, I conceded, “It could be a marble, though — a really beautiful marble.”
“Yes, of course.” He sounded distracted and moved quickly on to the next student. I felt a little surge of pride. He’d obviously found me very intimidating.
By the end of the month, nearly everything I owned was plastered with my drawings of my Sister Moon. They were bold and brilliant. Anybody could see that they screamed child prodigy. Much to the relief of everyone within earshot, I stopped complaining at the snack table.
I had such success with the artwork that I decided to turn my obvious talents to poetry. All told, I wrote at least seven or eight odes to my Sister Moon. Mrs. Erman was delighted with the first one. As she read it, she turned away for a moment and made a little noise. I think she was probably crying, and she didn’t want me to see because grown-ups aren’t supposed to cry in front of kids — especially if you’re a teacher. After all, that degrades your authority. But when she turned back around her eyes were completely dry and she just said, “Very good. I think you might cut out one of the extra ‘evers’ on the last line, though.” I think she was secretly hiding her admiration. She had probably never written anything so poetic and so utterly moving in her life.
Ode To The Moon
I really really love you.
I hope you love me too.
You are so pretty in the sky.
I hope you never die.
You are round and really white,
You are such a lovely sight.
You watch over me like a sister,
So please don’t ever find a mister.
Let’s stay together.
Forever, ever, ever, ever.
That day she sent a note home with me addressed to my parents reading that I was “exceptionally bright and creative,” and that I had “a very fantastic imagination.”
— To Be Continued —
thing-a-meme
Once again, I’ve been tagged to list some things that still make me, well, me. So hang onto your hats, people, it’s time for our second (and last) go ‘round into my version of “What Do You Meme?
Others you'll find milling about in this place: My family, all of whom will write books about me, later, based on therapy transcripts. Lots of friends, both old and new. Various dogs, though Scarlet O’Hara Howard is prominently featured for her intellect and general good nature.
Born in Ohio, but I’ve lived in the Commonwealth of Kentucky for the past 14 years.
I'm addicted to capturing moments, people, and places.
I'm in a tawdry love triangle with architecture, art, and writing.
I covet good socks above all else. That might be because I absolutely hate feet.
I love to debate, though I often get myself in trouble. Socrates is a role model.
I prefer NCAA football over its professional counterpart. The Ohio State University Buckeyes are without question or hesitation my favorite of all time.
I lose/search for nothing as often as I lose/search for rubber bands. And so now you'll almost always find me with a rubber band dangling around my wrist. And invariably, I'll end up losing/searching for that, too.
Two words: critical thinking.
I have a fascination with people and ideas that leads me, vicariously, around the globe and back. Daily.
I collect rocks from most everywhere I go.
My favorite book as a child was The Little Prince by Antoine Saint-Exupery. All these years later, it remains in my top five.
My two favorite films are Cinema Paradiso and Elf.
I laugh. A lot. When I'm not, there's at least a semi-perpetual mischievous, sarcastic grin on my face.
I keep my pens and pencils in separate pencil boxes on my desk.
I do not like the sun on me. I attribute this to being a natural redhead. And although there are those non-gingers who insist that it’s possible for a redhead to tan, I speak for all my people when I say this: that’s not a tan you think you see on us from a distance — it’s full-thickness third-degree burns that go nearly to the bone.
I may, indeed, become invisible in a snow squall, but my perfectly translucent skin is fine with the life choices I’ve made.
I connect deeply with places. I would disintegrate and die without learning.
There are precious few things I wouldn’t quickly sacrifice for my mom’s biscuits and gravy.
I believe very strongly in the innate and extreme magic and power of the human brain and untapped human ability.
If I ever claim bankruptcy, it'll be over books. And yes, that would be acceptable.
My favorite color is, or at least was, red.
I'm afraid of heights, and I get vertigo pretty bad.
I once stood at the paint swatch aisle in Home Depot and pocketed/brought home swatches of every single Glidden color on the market. No reason, other than I’m colorblind. They're on a shelf by my desk and represent a portion of what I’m unable to see, yet remember.
My reason for maintaining a journal is for the secret hope that by doing so, you'll breathe in the same (deep, sweet, ambiguous, long, funny, poignant, life-changing, silly, strong, enigmatic, selfish, excited, beautiful, difficult ... ) moment that I am, and we can collectively share that between us.
I believe that imperfections are the fibers that tie us all together and create a greater humanism and collective experience. But few seem to acknowledge, remember or value that.
My strongest affinities are the moon, the stars, and puppies.
Dirt roads.
My mind easily becomes too complicated and won't shut off. I have trouble letting things remain unresolved.
I dig my heels into conversations and questions. I tend to be more raw and direct than most are comfortable with; consequently, I often tug at my comfort zones. I make no apologies for fundamental truths. Collectively, these have all cost, and earned, friendships over the years.
I value above all else good parenting, social commitment, and personal integrity.
I value the least money, status, and social pretense.
One of my favorite opening lines is, ”I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice.” John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany
With most things, I'm satisfied only briefly before it's time to see what else is possible. It’s both a blessing and a curse.
proofing
If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done.
― Rita Mae Brown
It's Saturday morning, and I'm going to finish proofing my friend’s poetry thesis before noon.
I'm not going to wander out to the kitchen to open the refrigerator and gaze inside with the hope that the contents will be different than they were five minutes ago. I'm not going to pick up book after book to read enviously about the lives of people who don’t have a poetry thesis to proof. I'm not going to sit near my computer so that I can hear the little chime that sounds when a new email appears.
I'm going to finish proofing my friend’s poetry thesis.
I'm not going to put on music and dance around the living room. I'm not going to look out the window to watch the rain. I'm not going to empty the dishwasher. I’m not going to check the streaming services for new and interesting documentaries or engage in a conversation about recycling with my neighbor at the trash chute.
I'm going to finish proofing my friend’s poetry thesis.
I'm not going to write an email to Matt, even though I'm tempted because I know that he, too, has work to do — and nothing brings objectivity to the surface like procrastination. I'm not going to reread a dozen emails he sent me on Tuesday when he was supposed to be working. I'm not going to get out my brush pens and smear big swirls of I-don’t-know-what-color onto pale thick paper. I'm not going to read the books stacked around my house. I'm not going to thumb through the newest Levenger catalog.
I'm going to finish proofing my friend’s poetry thesis.
I'm not going to write an entry or comment on world events or review illustrations for the new book. I'm not going to write any of the emails I owe to friends or family. I'm not going to write in my journal. I'm not going to call my sister, although she better call me.
I'm going to finish proofing my friend’s poetry thesis.
Emails will fill my inbox, marked as unread for hours. The postman might bring some new magazines, a journal, maybe even a letter. The phone will ring, but I'll not answer it. The chocolate syrup will stay hidden inside its container, ice cream nestled into its spot in the freezer. The newspaper will stay folded in the hall outside my door. Daydreams will stay curled up inside the spaces of my body.
I'll finish proofing my friend’s poetry thesis.
simple pleasures
On the news this morning, a reporter was prattling on and on about things that get on her nerves. It was quite funny and I laughed along with the others onscreen with her. During the commercial break, though, I had a thought: instead of talking about annoyances, perhaps it'd suit us well to list things that bring us joy. Life, after all, is really about what we choose from day to day and what we spend our energy on.
Now, I'm all for fighting the good fight, but I can choose my reality. That being the case, I started to compile a list of my small pleasures. Here’s what I’ve got so far:
My childhood home. Books. Family. Poetry. Eastern Kentucky. Tiramisu. Belly laughs. Jesus. Baby snores. Jack Kerouac. Even numbers. The Ohio State University Buckeyes. Nice stationery. My beloved moon. Hugs. Farmer’s markets. Dinners with friends. Puccini. A freshly-made bed. Thoroughbred horses. City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco. Ice-cold grapefruit juice. Real letters (or postcards). A really good fountain pen. Acoustic guitars. A perfect cup of hot chocolate. Live music at small venues. Home-grown tomatoes. Fresh-baked bread. Reading. Babies laughing. Singing. That lovely shade of (what I think is) violet in the sky just before nightfall. Hugs and kisses from my nieces and nephews — expected or otherwise. Mozart, Billie Holiday, Andrea Bocelli, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, Frank Sinatra, Cecilia Bartoli, Bobby Darin, John Lee Hooker, Etta James, Puccini, Michael Feinstein — the music list is endless and covers almost everything.
All-in-all, not a bad start.
unfunny
You knew it was coming. I mean, you had to know that sooner or later there was going to be a post where I shared something personal. Maybe you hoped and prayed that your intuition was wrong. Perhaps you tried to convince yourself that I had more sense than to bare my soul on here for all to see.
I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I have no sense. Ask around if you need confirmation.
And so, with that disclaimer, I’d now like to talk about the time I nearly lost my foot in a tragic bouncy-house accident.
It was a Saturday in mid-September and I was away at school in West Virginia. We’d been playing cards all night (Shanghai Rummy, as I recall), and were going a bit stir-crazy when someone suddenly had a great idea: let’s go hang out at a music festival that was going on in Wheeling.
Now we (the suggestees) were aware of no such festival, but we had faith in the supreme knowledge of the suggestor and were all eager to have some fun off campus. And since this was long before Al Gore single-handedly invented the Internet, the luxury of online fact-checking simply didn’t exist.
We, my tens of readers, were acting on pure instinct and the morning-after-effects of Iron City Light. And so it was with great enthusiasm that we crammed into my little blue Mustang and headed down the hill.
Now, just for some perspective, Wheeling was (and probably still is, I’d imagine) a mere 12 miles from the Hilltop, a short (though harrowing) drive along a twisted maze of curves that Satan himself designed, known as WV-88. So when you have eight or ten people crammed into a vehicle designed to fit four, things can get a little dicey.
And yet still, driven by the power of sheer will and determination, we finally arrived at our destination.
Except it wasn’t a music festival. It was a fair. A very low-budget fair. More of a carnival, really.
Okay, let’s just call a spade a spade: it was a family barbeque with some pinwheel decorations stuck by the curb and a guy with a boombox.
But we didn’t drive all the way down the hill to simply turn back. If there was fun to be had, we were determined to find it. And so, while walking through the neighborhood, we came upon a beautiful sight: there, in the corner of a yard in the middle of the block, was a fully-inflated bouncy house.
We took one look at that beauty and collectively decided that bounce, we must.
At this point, we strode over to the main attraction, tossed our shoes and our dignity aside, and entered puffy paradise.
We jumped gently at first, showing off our bounce prowess. Oh, we were stars. Prodigies. If there had been some kind of Olympic event involving bouncy houses, we would’ve been champions. But alas, there was no league or training, and so we’d have to settle for that day’s successful bounce-o-rama.
But alas (for a second time), disaster lurked quietly in our future.
Shortly before dusk, the high-energy boombox-driven mix-tape rocking Hall & Oates pumping atmosphere started to change as folks began returning to their homes. To return to the commoners strolling about the not-quite-a-carnival carnival, it became necessary to finally exit the bouncy house.
In my defense, I believe it necessary to explain how the bouncy house was structured. There were steps (also known as the inflated ramps of hell) that slowly moved into the bouncy house entrance. On either side of the rising and falling hell platforms were very thin sheets of metal that were designed to prevent the inflated ramps of hell from moving.
Don’t ask me how or ask me why, but as we exited the bouncy house, my left sock and foot got wedged in the space between the inflatable ramps of hell and the metal side thingy. It was trapped. And as more folks began to exit the bouncy house, the shift in weight on the ramps of hell began twisting my foot, ripping through my sock.
My toes, people, were mere seconds away from never seeing the ‘90s.
They’d never curl in fear as they watched Alien. There would be no toe-picking-up of socks from the floor. My toes, although they didn’t know it, wouldn’t survive until Y2K.
And then a friend screamed. Or maybe she laughed. Either way, she made a noise and the rest was a blur.
Children covered their faces in horror. Another friend bounced aimlessly inside as she tried to offer assistance. Finally, someone yanked my foot out of the stronghold. Laying on the cool grass surrounded by festival attendees and an off-duty nurse telling us she was an off-duty nurse, I realized that my feet were safe, my toes intact.
My future Olympic career, however, was no more.
I’ve not been able to enjoy a bouncy house since that dreadful day without the use of a specially designed harness and backpack that allows me to hover above the steps themselves, never really ever setting foot on the metal menaces I refer to as the jaws, not of life, but death because of what happened to me that dark and disastrous day.
That day will live in infamy as one of the unfunniest days of my life.
For now, though, I think I’ll check to see what time constraints Go Fund Me has in place for inflatable-related pain and suffering.