full moon birthday
The moon was full on my forty-fifth birthday, the near-full weight of it keeping me awake for days before and days after in the quiet hours of the night, the hours that are ripe for reflection and restlessness. I need darkness to sleep, and have room-darkening curtains over the windows. But when the moon is full it seeps around the cracks at the sides of the curtains and finds me. With a pillow over my head, I still feel the moonlight pounding at my lids. And when I open the bedroom door and wander through my night house, it is spilling in at every curtain-less window and every room is heavy with silver light.
I have never minded the big, round numbers like thirty and forty. Starting a new decade always seems like a grand adventure that I am more than ready to begin. What will life be like in my forties? Will it be better than my thirties? Will I be wiser or stronger or happier? But the mid-decade birthdays get me down just a bit--the sense of time running downhill, all my life energy being funneled and propelled in one direction, half against my will. The questions take on a new urgency. "IS this better yet?", "AM I wiser or stronger or happier yet?" If there are things left undone which I wanted to accomplish in this decade of life, the time is ripe for doing them. And there are those undone things. Unstarted things. And, I am not quite ready to admit, possibly no longer doable things.
Forty-five, full moon, I lie awake wondering. Some of the events that have happened in the past five years, good and bad, were not even on my radar at forty. They have caught me off-guard, left me standing slack-jawed without an immediately appropriate response. The crap-load of sadness surrounding my youngest son was simply not to be predicted. My partner being diagnosed with cancer--whammy--not foreseeable. My niece, born five years ago, was totally unexpected, even by her parents. Finding a job that I love, working for people I respect and enjoy, I would not have guessed at five years ago as I struggled, miserably, through each day at my old job. My oldest son has been one of the most predictable things in my life. He's always been a good, loving, funny kid who has been a pleasure to travel through life with, and all those things he remains, as steady and strong as the full moon light through my windows.
Farmer's almanac says to plant in the full moon. Of course, they mean May or June, the planting season. But I am a child of frost and early freezes and spent stalks, so I have to make due with what I've got on my December birthday full moon. I can save these seeds of reflection, plant them in my heart, feed them on the kind of love and understanding and patience that I did not own in my thirties. This, at least, I know--in as much as things are undone or unresolved, sad or scary or
painful, at forty-five, my heart is big enough for all of it. And also big enough to contain a lifetime of searing joy, uncontrolled laughter, huge, happy, thrilling, poignant stuff.
And so the second half of my fortieth decade begins late at night, in the silvery light of a full moon.
I have never minded the big, round numbers like thirty and forty. Starting a new decade always seems like a grand adventure that I am more than ready to begin. What will life be like in my forties? Will it be better than my thirties? Will I be wiser or stronger or happier? But the mid-decade birthdays get me down just a bit--the sense of time running downhill, all my life energy being funneled and propelled in one direction, half against my will. The questions take on a new urgency. "IS this better yet?", "AM I wiser or stronger or happier yet?" If there are things left undone which I wanted to accomplish in this decade of life, the time is ripe for doing them. And there are those undone things. Unstarted things. And, I am not quite ready to admit, possibly no longer doable things.
Forty-five, full moon, I lie awake wondering. Some of the events that have happened in the past five years, good and bad, were not even on my radar at forty. They have caught me off-guard, left me standing slack-jawed without an immediately appropriate response. The crap-load of sadness surrounding my youngest son was simply not to be predicted. My partner being diagnosed with cancer--whammy--not foreseeable. My niece, born five years ago, was totally unexpected, even by her parents. Finding a job that I love, working for people I respect and enjoy, I would not have guessed at five years ago as I struggled, miserably, through each day at my old job. My oldest son has been one of the most predictable things in my life. He's always been a good, loving, funny kid who has been a pleasure to travel through life with, and all those things he remains, as steady and strong as the full moon light through my windows.
Farmer's almanac says to plant in the full moon. Of course, they mean May or June, the planting season. But I am a child of frost and early freezes and spent stalks, so I have to make due with what I've got on my December birthday full moon. I can save these seeds of reflection, plant them in my heart, feed them on the kind of love and understanding and patience that I did not own in my thirties. This, at least, I know--in as much as things are undone or unresolved, sad or scary or
painful, at forty-five, my heart is big enough for all of it. And also big enough to contain a lifetime of searing joy, uncontrolled laughter, huge, happy, thrilling, poignant stuff.
And so the second half of my fortieth decade begins late at night, in the silvery light of a full moon.
Comments
we could have salads.
it could be fun.
what say you?