Who Painted the Moon...Red?

        Not exactly the lyrics of the song (nor its intention), but as I sit out on my porch, at 2 am, watching a red moon disappear into the dark of night, the lyrics just came to mind...

Did you see the shiny moon?

Turned into a black balloon

Just as you walked away from me

Did you see how hard I've tried?

Not to show the pain inside

Just as you walked away from me

Who painted the moon black?

Just when you passed your love back

Who painted the moon black?

Oh won't you, won't you come back?

It must have been the darkest night

Not even a star in sight

Just as you walked away from me, now

Who painted the moon black?

Just when you passed your love back

Who painted the moon black?

Oh won't you, won't you come back?

Who painted the moon black?

Just when you passed your love back

Who painted the moon black?

Oh won't you, won't you come back?

Who painted the moon?

(Hayley Westenra, "Who Painted The Moon Black")

        Being all bundled up like this, staring up at a night sky and joining the entire continent in watching a magical phenomenon we call science at work, I'm pulled back, many years, to when I was a little girl and you would excitedly grab all the blankets and pillows, bundle me in coats and all, to go lay out on the neighbor's gravel driveway, so we could watch whatever it was that was happening, up there.

        You would love this!  You'd be wondering how I could write this, when something so amazing was going on, up there.  Don't worry, I'm still watching.  It's beautiful.  I'm actually out here, on my own, freezing my toosh and fingers off, because you gave me a wonder of the skies.  It would have been amazing to have a telescope, and a camera to catch it. 

         I wish I could have caught your voice, so excited, and your happy energy, so I could play them back, right now, beyond my memories, so that those who know me, now, could understand why I'm weeping up at a moon I can barely see. 

        You know, I really never knew where I got my deep love of, and fascination with, the sky.  Sitting here, the icy wind lifting my tears into the night, I'm wondering how I hadn't figured it out til now?  My fondness for taking pictures of the sky overhead has become a joke in some circles.  Of course, I remember seeing an entire photo book you'd collected of a trip, and though I was told you were taking pics of some animals or something you saw from the side of the road...they were fantastic pics of a dead-brown mountainside.  Nothing more than dead-brown-ness, in the whole book. ;)

        It has taken me a really long time.  I guess it hurt so much, I couldn't bear to do more than lock away all the memories of you.  As time passes, and I get older, perhaps because I am now the age you were when I started knowing you with the ability to remember you, the memories become tied to my own experiences.  And sometimes, like tonight, they peek out at me, allowing you to enjoy little snippets of my life, right alongside me.

        As the darkness across the moon shifts, and the other edge of the moon becomes brighter until a whiteness begins to shine again, the tears begin to fade and a sense of deep awe, as the meaning of "spacetime" changes for me.  It is no longer just about the magic of science, tonight, in joining with so many in witnessing this beautiful event, but about how places and times - even generations - can all be united in one moment.

        And what a beautiful moment, indeed.