I’ve been watching the moon pass from its low vantage point, peeking through the cedar giants on the road outside my window, to rise high in the sky that is still blue, westward-bound. And it strikes me that this is the first time I’ve really watched the moon move, instead of moving myself.
Like all very young children do, I looked at everything my little eyes could take in and wondered about the world, question after question, some of which I asked aloud and others which I didn’t. One such unspoken puzzle was the mystery of the moon and why, no matter how fast I ran or the car went, and no matter how carefully I hid myself, it was always there. No one else ever seemed to talk about this strange phenomenon, let alone notice it, so I was left to conclude that there was something uncanny at work that happened only to me.
Obviously, I was being followed by the moon.
Incidentally, this may or may not explain why I believed myself to be the centre of the universe. Everyone’s universe. (Or perhaps that’s just because I was the baby of the family.)
At any rate, my brother eventually disarmed me of any solipsist notions I might have developed by explaining that the moon follows pretty much everybody. Not entirely convinced that I wasn’t special, I continued trying to cheat the moon — for even just one second — for a while, but in the end, resigned myself to watching the moon watch me.
Of course, if I’d been able to sit still for long enough, and if minutes hadn’t felt like hours (and hours, days), then I would have found that the moon moves along its trajectory in the sky whether you are there to notice or not.
Sometimes far too quickly.
(My iPod doesn't do the view the least justice and I'm too much a dunce with my actual camera to make it stop pretending it's still light out, so pixellated image it must be.)
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