Lunar Eclipse

I'm sure there are far clearer photos taken of last night's (or rather, this morning's) lunar eclipse, but there was something satisfying about taking my own pictures of it.

I wouldn't have even known about the eclipse if my friend Kathy hadn't called me from the road, driving that rental truck slowly up the moonlight soaked grades of the Grapevine. She had heard about it on the radio.

I didn't think I could stay up late enough for it, as I had to get up early this morning to take William to an appointment, but then time went by as I puttered with this and that (and yes, I did get some work done on the living room reorganizing - not much, but some) and wondering when it would begin I glanced out the front window and there was the moon, like a big white cookie with a bite taken out of the corner already.

Every ten minutes or so I took another photo, balancing it as still as I could on the back of some metal lawn furniture. Our new neighbors had their porch light on, shining across into our yard, which was a bit of a bummer. They've left it on every night since they've moved in, about a week ago. I think it's going to be a regular thing. Which bums me out. I'm annoyed at them anyway, for not being our friend Al. Eventually I'll meet them I suppose. They haven't made any effort to say hi and we haven't been able to catch them to say hi ourselves - they just dash back and forth to their car. Change is just hard sometimes. It's easier to be mad at our new neighbors for replacing our old and beloved neighbors (and friends), than it is to be sad about our old neighbors absence.

I always find myself wondering what people from different times think of the same experience. How would someone from the 15th century, for example, experience 21st century streets of New York? How would someone from the Bronze Age experience this eclipse? Would someone from this era be able to survive if they were one of the first settlers to the New World?

I couldn't help but see the connection between the eclipse and my post yesterday, about THINGS. Here's a big THING. Up in the sky. And slowly but surely it disappears. It is packed up, swallowed up by the sky herself, into nothingness. But wait....

As the eclipse nears it's zenith, the outline of the full moon returns. She's red, transformed by the process, illuminated not by the sun, but by a thousand small goodbyes, a thousand sunsets, a thousand perspectives.

Even though I didn't stay up to watch her return to full light, her ascent from the journey (I tried, but I fell asleep), I know she will return just as beautiful as ever, shining on us all. huddled together down here in the shadow of night.