It Only Looks Ordinary

Earlier this week, I was reading about the opposition of Mars and the rising of the blue moon and decided to go out and take a look at it. I think I've mentioned before that stargazing isn't so great around here due to the increase in city lights in recent years. It was never outstanding, but the number of stars you can pick out on a clear night gets smaller all the time, as parking lots and new construction crowd in around us. Still, it's hard under any circumstances barring thick clouds ever to miss the moon, and I'm usually able to find a planet or two, light pollution or no.

Officially, the full moon had occurred the night before, but the opposition of Mars was supposed to be that night, so it seemed a great time to catch both moon and planet. Up the street I went, binoculars in hand. I had no trouble finding Mars, even without the binoculars, due to its brilliance and rusty color. The information I saw online had mentioned looking toward the southeast sky; my view in that direction being blocked by trees, I was wondering just how long it would take before the moon cleared them. I alternated between gazing at Mars and looking expectantly toward the trees, so I was caught off guard when I noticed the leading edge of the moon peeking above the horizon near the stadium, farther north than I was anticipating.

I had to catch my breath. The moon was quite large on the horizon, and the color was distinctively orange, more of a harvest moon in my mind than a spring moon. It was a dramatic rising. I noticed someone in a car parked at the side of the road, presumably as dazzled as I was; someone going by on a bicycle also stopped to look. I started thinking about other memorable full moons I've known, such as the one that rose over the sea outside my hotel in Naples, Florida, many years ago, waking me in the night and causing me to wonder who was out on the beach with a spotlight. There was also the time I was driving to my brother's house from Yellowstone and noticed a glow in the sky behind the hills. I first thought there was a fire, only realizing it was the moon when it finally crested the ridge, appearing almost to sit on the hills. And there was the moon that rose over the Santa Monica Mountains in the bright blue sky of early evening as I drove to the airport at the end of my Pacifica days, seeming to mark the end of something, or maybe the beginning.

All of this went through my head as I watched Sunday's moon climb slowly above the trees and the power lines, clearing some clouds that partially obscured it. Rather than Flower Moon, I would have called it the Gold Moon; there was nothing delicate or ethereal about it. It was Technicolor orange, and all of its features were sharply delineated. After observing for a little while in the same spot, I started walking home, stopping every so often to look behind me. It seemed wrong to turn your back on something like that, even if it was getting late.

On my street, I stopped again for another view. The moon had barely cleared a rather ordinary and nondescript flat-roofed building, which happened to have a window facing me. There was a light on in the room, giving it that slightly hyperreal air that offices and schoolrooms have when you go into them after hours. The empty room had a contemplative look, which became even more striking when I shifted position and noticed the standard-issue office clock on the back wall. The round clock face made a counterpoint to the moon, and the fluorescent light framed in the rectangle of the window seemed to answer in some way to the luminous orb in the sky beyond. It was such a perfect composition that I would have painted it on the spot if I could. The juxtaposition of mundane and magical, of earthly and celestial, was one of the most moving things I've ever seen. The feeling was a bit like that of Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, without the people. It seemed to sum up all the loneliness of existence, but it was also quietly exhilarating and obscurely comforting. I would have called it Time and Eternity, but I see that someone's used that for a video game. Maybe Eternity and the Clock instead.

So that's it, that's my full moon story. I was expecting to see a beautiful moon, but the framing that occurred when I changed position caught me by surprise (how true it is that shifting your perspective can yield unexpected vistas). It's remarkable that I had such a cosmic experience on my very own block, just down the street from where I live--but after all, maybe it isn't. Aren't we always in the midst of burning stars, whirling galaxies, wandering planets, and unseen dimensions? It only looks ordinary.