It had to be 1977, because that's when we met and married and for all intents and purposes, went our separate ways.
We were driving home from my father's house... down a dark and empty interstate... 30 miles, and it was night. There was a full moon. We felt close and insulated, in the car and the dark and our new, different life together.
The night was steeped in darkness, except for this sharp, brilliant moon... the way the world was before we lit it up. He was driving and said he was uncomfortable. The moon was shining into the car from the south, and right on him. I was in shadow. He said this type of moonlight made him jittery, that it always had. To me, the moon was the moon.
My handsome, gay husband could be dramatic when it suited the situation, but this wasn't one of those times. He was uncomfortable. I talked about the moon with him, and as he described it's crystalline light, that could maybe be shattered with the flick of a finger... I could somehow understand it. There WAS a difference to it that night. A brightness, sharpness, an almost emotional distance... so different from the soft moonlight I had always noticed.
Eventually he pulled the car over to the side and asked me to drive. I did, and kept waiting for the moon to ambush me, even though I knew this was his craziness.
............
Years later, taking a night walk... I felt the moon his way, like cool metal to the skin.
There are so many quotes about the moon. One of my favorites is, "The moon is shining down her wisdom, Girl."
But that night, and tonight and a few nights in between it's 'The moon's a harsh mistress. She's hard to call your own."
Sorry to be slow in commenting, but I kept having internet issues all day yesterday…and I'm thinking it may not be fully resolved today.
ReplyDeleteI really like this vignette—it is just excellent in every way. As to the facts and thoughts behind the piece itself, I expect it is both truth and metaphor for what was going on. Longfellow called the moon and its light a "pale phantom." And so it is, not real (the light) but only a force by reflection. A once-removed light which perhaps best reveals things otherwise hidden—and in the case of your husband, disturbing because it illuminated the shadows to show his flawed psyche to himself. That, I think, is the magic of moonlight…maybe its purpose. I know I find myself thinking in different ways, perhaps on different planes, when out and about under the spell of moonlight. Who knows what one might discover under moonlight?
Good, good, post.
Thank you, Grizz. I wasn't really thinking about the writing, though... I was just there.
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