Basking in Moonbeams
On the kitchen floor,
let yourself cry tears of
silver moonbeam’s shards.
Absorb Her light,
let her cup your wilted cheek,
softened, sage palm.
I could sit there forever.
I, much like many others, feel an intense, lovely attraction to the moon. “Lady Moonlight,” I used to refer to her as. I can’t put my finger on exactly when my love for moonlight began, but I know it was long before I had a conscious recognition of what the moon was, and it was automatic.
The funny thing is, I’m afraid of the dark. I much rather be strolling in the daylight than sitting indoors at night, and that’s a pattern that’s followed me all throughout my life. I’m an adult and that’s still the case. The only thing that can shake my fear, though, is the moon: glorious, bright, protective. There’s a permanence to moonlight that provides me the safety my blankets never could.
In a lot of ways, the relationship I’ve established with the moon has become one of a best friend or sister. It started when I was younger, sitting at a bay window that had no shades or blinds. I loved sitting and staring at the moonlight, imagining what kinds of people or lifeforms lived up there and how they saw the earth. I used to look for faces and friends in the craters of the moon, imagining I saw my teachers or strangers I had passed on the street, engraved in the surface of the rock. It was easy to pretend I had a friend looking down on me, I believed so hard that that was the moon’s purpose. She was shining just for me, a friend I could come back to in the middle of the night.
As I grew older, our relationship became more complex. I began to use a sentient idea of the moon as a therapist, the older sister to my struggling teenager. I began to speak in whispers to the moon, sharing my secrets with her in the hopes of receiving some sage wisdom, far older than I was. Fueled by the thought of her age and what she’s seen, I relied on the moon as my greatest confidant. If Cleopatra lived under the same moon, it’s good enough for me.
Summer after summer, I took every chance I could get to speak to the moon, sitting in different rooms, staring up through different windows, all to maximize the effect. I don’t know why I did it, I don’t know why I still do: I’m not lonely by any means and often I feel too old to be regaling my issues with a space rock. And yet, it’s so addicting. Conversing with the moon is a secret, I’m speaking to the personified version of a friend who’ll never betray me.
And, in talking to the moon, I grow closer to her. In some strange way, I feel like I absorb moonlight when I use it to solve my problems. I bask in its glow, trusting my own judgment to walk me through my quarrels, and, as a prize, I get to retain some of the gentle femininity cast on me by Lady Moonlight. There’s always been something so alluring to being connected with the moon. I’ve always loved the idea of cementing myself in the stars with her, a permanent fixture gazing down on an impermanent world. My fantasies, of course, are not built on scientific fact but hours of stargazing as a child.
In the bedroom window,
hold her silver softness in your hands.
Trust in that feeling,
love or belonging or being in the shoes of
every stargazer to come before you
and every stargazer to come after.
I could sit there forever.
My moon musings are as mystical and private to me as the celestial body herself. I think it’s so attractive to be connected to the moon because of its permanence in this world: every living creature who’s had the privilege of being outside at night has seen the moon or its effects. In connecting myself with her, in talking to her, and engaging in my lunacy, I’m one with those who did the same thing. There’s a silly, beautiful, romanticized feeling of unity that I achieve when I speak to the stars, and I love the way it makes me feel. The moon makes me feel so much more important and permanent than I am; it’s my permission to sit in the seat of forever, if only for a night at a time.