Christmas Eve 2007, through the window
...and as we travel under its ‘special effects’, we remark over and over how unreal this moon looks, unreal because it looks like something in the movies and we all know in the digital age we can no longer rely on what our eyes can see. My subconscious eye conjures an image of a great beach ball floating far on the horizon of an endless ocean with a figure on the shore; the figure in contentment faces the beach unaware that it will not be able to retrieve the ball at its convenience, not because it hasn’t the wherewithal, but simply because it isn’t paying attention. It has forgotten that the ball is in motion and miscalculated how far it must travel to meet it. One day a year, we strive, crave, hope for perfection in the special effects we call Christmas – we get only one take – but here before us in our man-made capsule, nature has trumped our feeble attempts, neither LED, incandescent or fluorescent can duplicate the illumination above us. A contrail shoots out to the right of the giant, glowing moon and I squeal with excitement that it must be Santa! It MUST be! I have chosen to forget that the children accompanying me are 17, 19 and 22…and so have they. I say the word ‘moon’ like I’m saying it for the first time…”Look at the Mooooon!”….like I have just unwrapped a surprise gift. Tonight, the moonlight is a surprise and a gift to all the earth and even though it is so very far away, I do believe in what I think I see.
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