All of us are under the same moon.

Last night I went looking for the moon. I wanted to see it rising over the red tile roofs of my condo complex. Benign brightness and beauty, a silver river of light pouring out of the darkness. Instead there was a dirty blanket of sky, one corner torn– and a scrap of light showing through. 1983, the news reports said, was the last time the moon came so close in its orbit. In 1983 I’d already been in Los Angeles nearly a decade. 

I had no children in 1983. Although my son was thirteen years old and somewhere under that moon,  I didn’t know where. I didn’t know his name. Maybe he was in a park playing basketball, or going into a movie theater to see Star Wars for the the twentieth time. Motherhood was my secret then. A part of me, covered over and not allowed into the light. I wouldn’t be having any more children, I thought.

In the year of this super moon, the light resides in my children. All three of them. It seems something of a miracle that both of my daughters, now grown women, are asleep in my house tonight. And just four nights ago I stood in my son’s backyard with him and his wife and children as we took turns peering through a telescope at the moon.


photo credit: art.com