Cloying

“Hurry and look at the moon while it’s still low,” the text message implores me, in the secret language spoken between my boy and me. I can’t count how many years it’s been since we made this satellite our own.  It’s always felt mystical, this idea that even when we’re apart we’re looking at the same moon. I dash out the door; this isn’t my first sighting.  I know how fast she rises, how quickly she shrinks, how critical to catch her in her exact moment of ephemeral beauty.

Tonight just may be the most perfect night of the year, certainly of this particular autumn to date.  To quote a not-so-prolific songwriter of my youth, “there's a warm wind blowin' the stars around.”   It’s nearly 80 degrees on the backside of October. The brisk breeze rustles persistently, attempting to coax from the branches leaves still reluctant to share their brilliant fall color.

I spot her, just above the trees, at the end of my backyard pond.  Her light shimmers in the water, her shape fades, then brightens in the clouds. That my son finds this piece of our cosmos as intriguing as I do and chooses to engage me is no small feat.

It’s not just the moon that’s so magical to me, it’s this seemingly insignificant yet everlasting connection we’ve made, my boy and me.