So while I've always had an affinity for the moon, (an affinity I can trace back to a love for children's classics such as Goodnight Moon and Mooncake) it became super (overly) romanticized on a school trip my senior year in high school. I was on my high school's Academic Decathlon team (Nine students compete in ten academic events), and that year we made it to nationals. Which was totally awesome because I got to leave second semester senior year when everyone was getting super antsy about graduating. So on the first night in Erie, PA, I noticed that there was a person at the competition with the same last name as me. Let's call him Begonia. So, naturally, I set out to find him. On the second to last day there, Begonia found me! He had been looking for me, too. So the culminating event of Academic Nationals that year was an award ceremony, a dinner, and then a free-for-all in the indoor water park. Cool, right? We nerds sure thought so. So Begonia and I totally hit it off, and I ended up hanging out with him and his team late into the night. We parted at something like 5am when he needed to catch his flight back to Begoniaville. (Like Louisville, it's pronounced kind of relaxed. Bu-gon-vulle. Yeah, that's it. Good job!) Anyway, we kept in touch after that from across the country. We had so many things in common: our last name, our Italian heritage, putting olives on our fingers as children (maybe it's an Italian thing?), and a passionate love for the moon. At first we talked every single day. He even came to my church canoe trip that summer, and I told everyone he was my southern cousin. Looking back, I don't know if anyone believed me. Let me proclaim the truth these nearly ten years later: He. Was not. My cousin. In time, we talked less, I would be dating someone, or he would, and we'd go weeks without speaking. But, we always talked on the night of a full moon. Even if it was just a simple:
me: heya happy full moon.
begon: heyyyyyyy a! thanks!!!
And this went on. FOR SEVEN YEARS. The story of what happened at the seven year mark is one for another blog post. (Blost. Posog. Sometimes I like to smoosh two words into one in what's formally called a portmanteau. Just for fun.) Needless to say, we do not text when there's a full moon anymore. But sometimes I think of Begonia. Mostly, I just allow myself to be utterly romanced by this amazing phenomenon that occurs outside my window once a month and what a privilege it was to share that with someone every month.
Way too late in life, at the age of about twenty-four, I discovered a film and a writer who seems to feel the same way that I do about the moon. John Patrick Shanley. And the film of course is Moonstruck. That gorgeous time capsule of Italian-American New York in the 80's with a striking lioness called Cher and a sexy brooding Nic Cage.
cher: I'm looking at the moon
nic: It's perfect.
cher: I never seen a moon like that before.
nic: Makes you look like an angel. Looks like a giant snowball.
Well put. And then, I saw John Patrick Shanley's Joe Vs. The Volcano, a fantastic quirktastic 80's film with the dynamic romcom duo Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, where there is an even bigger moon. I couldn't believe it. I didn't even think it was possible. I hope to meet John Patrick Shanley one day, and I think our slightly intoxicated (on my end) conversation would go something like this:
me: wow, it's such an honor to meet you JP. omigod, did I just call you JP? sorry.
jps: oh, thanks.
me: you, like, won a Pulitzer for Doubt, huh?
jps: yes! I did.
me: good job, man!
jps: thanks.
me: and your films! the moon?
jps: what?
me: can I get you a drink?
jps: uh, no thanks. I have one.
me: oh. yeah. holy wow I can't believe. and you're handsome, too?
jps: I have to go.
me: love your work!!
I'm sure he's a great guy. I mean a person who loves the moon as much as he obviously does would have to be, right? So let this post stand for the undying love and affection I have for the moon, and for the connections that I have made with people simply because of a common adoration for the moon. What an unusual thing to unite people. Let this post signify how my breath catches in my throat when I see her, how I adore her silver light on my bedspread, a black body of water, or the grass in an open field. The way she travels effortlessly and gradually across the sky at night. ow every moment she is present somehow feels like I'm inside a film the way nobody could ever actually be inside a film. How I love her in every form from low, warm, butterscottch horizon-brushing majesty to angular piercing sliver lazerbeams. Sigh. Goodnight, moon.
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