The fading remnants of a supermoon hung in the air as our dinner party broke up at almost 2 AM. Andy and I saw our guests to their car, and looked up to the sky, where this scene played brilliantly out. I believe this was the Sturgeon Moon, another gift of August (which has been exceptionally kind to us thus far). It brought to mind a Matthew Sweet song that saw me through a few tricky college years, back when I didn’t quite know who I was, back when I couldn’t quite face who I was.
There’s a smog moon, in the amber sky, wavering and burning like a golden lie.
I fell so far, I didn’t think I’d make it back
We are all made, as an afterthought,
Destined to believe that we are what we are not
I’m afraid, but I don’t need to tell you that…
Those August moons of my youth crossed overhead, exploding in their light – that light that was always so vital in the darkness of an August night. For several reasons, an August night too often feels darker than any winter night – a strange phenomenon in the season of sun – and one that is a small price to pay for the glories of summer we are otherwise granted. We let the dark nights go, sweating and worrying through them, and if we’re lucky enough to see the morning, we forget how dark they were.
There’s a smog moon coming I can always feel it
The cartoon trees cannot conceal it
When it’s high up in the sky, it almost looks like it is white
When it’s high up in the sky, it almost looks like…
It is told by those who tell such things that this Sturgeon Moon is to be the last of the Super Moons this year. Did we channel all the good energy and dispel the bad? Did we soak in its power and drink in all of the proverbial moonshine? Full moons are usually troublesome, but there are some who believe we simply need to harness their energy the right way. I don’t think I’ve found the right way just yet, even though decades have passed since I first heard this beautiful song.
There’s a lost man, with a bitter soul, Only for a moment,
Did life make him whole
And while he was, he thought he was invincible
There’s a smog moon coming I can always feel it
The cartoon trees cannot conceal it
When it’s high up in the sky, it almost looks like it is white
When it’s high up in the sky, it almost looks like it is white
The song memory brings me back to being in Boston. On certain nights, at certain times of the year, the moon hangs in a specific space in the sky. It shines in through the bedroom window, and just kisses the foot of the bed. Once upon a time, unknowing people believed being bathed in moonlight could be the cause of such things as lunacy (from the root ‘luna’ meaning moon). I always flirted with disaster that way, seeking out the moon bath whenever I could, glad to have its reflected echo of sunlight in the middle of a dark night.
They’re not your words, but you’re reciting the lines
You don’t mean a thing, but you exist in their minds
How does it feel, when they have turned out the lights?
‘Cause you know they sooner would get rid of you, than fight.
On those nights, when the moon peeked in and invited me out, I tentatively slipped a toe into its light, then a foot, then a leg and a thigh… we danced, the moon and I, and whether it was a dance with the devil or an angel, I only know it made me dizzy and exhilarated and defeated – always defeated – by its power and might and whatever secrets it saw – the very secrets that I bared and revealed beneath its intoxicating light. My college years were cloaked in such secrets, buried in silent screams, and only brought to light in a song like this.
And the dark night, has the strongest pull
We both know that staying young, can take its toll
Are you afraid of finding out you’re over that
Matthew Sweet sang to my younger self, when no one else could touch or reach me, and like a lullaby it was comfort and consolation. When I was 23, all I wanted was my 46-year-old future-self to reveal the secrets to all the questions and doubts and worries I had. Now that I’m that future-self, I find I have less knowledge and understanding than I did then, when not knowing was its own sort of wisdom. It feels like I’m going backward, and perhaps that’s the way it should be – cresting over the hump of middle-age and returning to that happier place of not knowing or understanding things, but simply being at peace with them. Finding the happiness where you can find it, taking pleasure and joy when and where they arrive rather than trying to force or create them. I like that view now. I like the not knowing.
And I like the moon.
There’s a smog moon coming I can always feel it
The cartoon trees cannot conceal it
When it’s high up in the sky, it almost looks like it is white
When it’s high up in the sky, it almost looks like it is white
When it’s high up in the sky, it almost looks like it is white
When it’s high up in the sky, it almost looks like…
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