I wasn't even sure how to spell it, but tonight dawned (can night dawn? I've decided so, I guess) with a brilliant orange moon hovering over the rooftops outside my desk window here, and I spent a bunch of time I could otherwise have spent otherwise taking pictures of it with each of the settings on my digital camera. I don't know what any of the settings are for, in spite of the little icons that accompany them on the dial. So I got an array of photos, some with a bit of blur to them, others with a bit of psychedelic to them, others that were just plain bad.
Then I went off to a writers group meeting, where I learned that we were to expect an eclipse tonight. When it started to happen, everyone scrambled for the couch to look out and up at it. I waited. Don't you care about the moon? they prodded. It's beautiful! I believe you, I said, nodding. I could of course see the eclipse just fine from the calm privacy of my own chair, and helped myself to the binoculars as they continued their loving quips about what a party pooper I was being. I couldn't help but laugh. But you guys, I said, still from my quiet corner chair, I spent like half an hour taking pointless pictures of that moon before we got here. And it wasn't even doing anything!
I'll always push to be different, no matter what it costs me. This eclipse comes at a good time. My work is taking me in directions that could have me different, separate, known, in a way that may not always, will probably not always, be comfortable. I'm not sure I'm up for it, and yet, as this evening unfolds, and the moon does its disappearing act against the freezing February sky, I can help but decide that disappearing's not the way to go; not the way to keep safe, not the way to get home. We'll see what happens, but in the meantime, here's the view from my desk, blurred by the screen, framed by the reflection of the computer. This moon just might be reason enough to learn how to use a camera...
