Over the course of our friendship, M. has lent me several books. The Viagra book felt vaguely slimy in my mind (and I never finished it). The Hunger Games trilogy twirled me around and swooped me up and down, and after several months of suspense, set me down in a sunny, spacious place. And now I've read the first book in a new trilogy: Life as We Knew It.
Like Hunger Games, it was hard to put down. The novel is written as the journal of Miranda, a Pennsylvanian sixteen-year-old whose name inevitably reminds me of the ravaged planet in the movie "Serenity." This is a fitting association for a book about the disintegration of life on Earth when a stray asteroid strikes our own Luna, sending her a shade closer to the planet. The moon looms grotesquely and menacingly large overhead, as though it is about to fall out of the sky. It is a relief to Miranda when the vast quantities of ash from the volcanoes that spring up everywhere on the destablized planet obscure the sky entirely. When the ash is thick enough, she can't see the moon's threats. Meanwhile, there are plenty of more direct physical threats wreaking havoc all over the planet: tidal waves, earthquakes, epidemics, food shortages.
This is a book about the narrowing of a life, the shrinking of the known world. This is a book about deprivation and death.
It's also a book about appreciating the little you have. But that appreciation comes only through resignation. Joy sprouts from accepting that things can't better, and in fact they are going to get much worse, so now is the time to extract the little life you can out of the shriveling, withering world. This is a book about hope that comes through blindness, about stripping away false faith, about salvation through asceticism.
Reading this book felt like drowning. When I rose to the surface--when I closed the book and opened my eyes to the clear blue sky and the sunshine streaming down like it would never ever run out--I gulped reality, gasping and heaving, and coughed up despair like water from my lungs. Drowning makes you appreciate air, but that doesn't mean almost drowning is good for the soul. I don't intend to read the sequels to Life as We Knew It. Despair is enough of a temptation in my own world of abundance and faith; living in the head of a teenager in desperate circumstances that cannot improve (in her world) does nothing good for my emotional stability. Distant as the moon is, I am enough of a lunatic.
Showing posts with label moon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moon. Show all posts
Monday, October 11, 2010
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Walking Home
It's that time again: time for taking twice as long to walk home at night; time for fixing mesmerized eyes on the skies; time for darkening the streetlights and welcoming the shadows. This moment always sneaks up on me. I am rushing from place to place, checking things off my list. Then suddenly, I see what I have had dozens of chances to anticipate--for the moon is full again.
Tonight, the mist is moving restlessly, migrating and fidgeting. But the moon is steady behind the clouds. The orange streetlights make the trees' new leaves glow gold, and the silver moon shines through them. Her face is dim, compared to the lights we have hung on the buildings, along the paths, and the mist obscures it even more. But I cannot tear my eyes away from her.
Finally the clouds cover the moon completely. The spell broken, I uproot my feet and move homeward. But I keep looking over my shoulder, waiting for that pale disk to gaze at me once more.
The moon is an enchantress. I meant to try to find word for the music I heard tonight--the vibraphone and marimba and clarinet and piano and cymbals--but once I looked the moon in the eye, I was her creature, fit for nothing else.
Tonight, the mist is moving restlessly, migrating and fidgeting. But the moon is steady behind the clouds. The orange streetlights make the trees' new leaves glow gold, and the silver moon shines through them. Her face is dim, compared to the lights we have hung on the buildings, along the paths, and the mist obscures it even more. But I cannot tear my eyes away from her.
Finally the clouds cover the moon completely. The spell broken, I uproot my feet and move homeward. But I keep looking over my shoulder, waiting for that pale disk to gaze at me once more.
The moon is an enchantress. I meant to try to find word for the music I heard tonight--the vibraphone and marimba and clarinet and piano and cymbals--but once I looked the moon in the eye, I was her creature, fit for nothing else.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
March Moon
Yesterday, the moon was a silver coin on the black silk sky. Today, it is a faint spot staining the darkness. Its edges fade into the black. Today, the moon is a hole worn through the old black curtain that is the sky. Its light struggles to shine through the fabric.
Yesterday, the sky was high and empty and distant. It was a pure dome, curving smoothly. Tonight, the sky is hiding something, keeping secrets. Tonight, the sky swarms with mist. I would like the sky to whisper its secrets to me. (Dear night sky, you seem ready to ragged-edged. Worn-down, put-upon. You've lost your joy. Tell me, what's on your mind? If you need to cry, I can be here.)
But the crisp air is still. The sky isn't telling me its stories. Instead, I drink in the night through thirsty nostrils. My lungs expand till the whole world could fit inside them. I am expansive. The sky and the lonely moon and the barren trees and the weary people and all the words and songs: they could all nestle in my blood-trees, in vein-artery rivers, in my lungs. Those few breaths of cold air change me than the hours of conversation.
The moon is still uncertain, but I know the stars are coming, soon.
Yesterday, the sky was high and empty and distant. It was a pure dome, curving smoothly. Tonight, the sky is hiding something, keeping secrets. Tonight, the sky swarms with mist. I would like the sky to whisper its secrets to me. (Dear night sky, you seem ready to ragged-edged. Worn-down, put-upon. You've lost your joy. Tell me, what's on your mind? If you need to cry, I can be here.)
But the crisp air is still. The sky isn't telling me its stories. Instead, I drink in the night through thirsty nostrils. My lungs expand till the whole world could fit inside them. I am expansive. The sky and the lonely moon and the barren trees and the weary people and all the words and songs: they could all nestle in my blood-trees, in vein-artery rivers, in my lungs. Those few breaths of cold air change me than the hours of conversation.
The moon is still uncertain, but I know the stars are coming, soon.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Golden
Last night, I was walking along the road when suddenly the Moon appeared, suspended in the black sky: bright gold. The Harvest Moon! I thought, but it isn't the season for harvest. . . Drawn like a moth to a candle, I changed my course, leaving the road and walking across the field toward the trees, toward the golden Moon. The frozen grass crunched beneath my shoes, and the cold seeped into my feet.
Behind the trees (their bare branches like lines of ink), the Moon hung. I have never seen it so warm. The Moon was amber, honey, copper, like a huge coin, a physical presence, ancient and alive, burnished gold. I walked toward it, transfixed. Its edges did not bleed into the blackness at all, almost as though it were a hole punched out of the sky, revealing the warm, welcoming light behind the coldness of space. But the Moon was too solid and bright to be a hole. Rather, it was a golden disk laid on a black velvet cloth. . . But the sky has no wrinkles, and the Moon was standing, not lying down, not sitting.
In the end, the Moon is the Moon, and anything else is a diminishment. Each time I see the full Moon, I am pierced to the core again.
I walked on, finally, when the chill soaked my bones. The Moon vanished into the horizon. But its golden light stayed. I walked like my pockets were full of gold coins, warm between my cold fingers.
Behind the trees (their bare branches like lines of ink), the Moon hung. I have never seen it so warm. The Moon was amber, honey, copper, like a huge coin, a physical presence, ancient and alive, burnished gold. I walked toward it, transfixed. Its edges did not bleed into the blackness at all, almost as though it were a hole punched out of the sky, revealing the warm, welcoming light behind the coldness of space. But the Moon was too solid and bright to be a hole. Rather, it was a golden disk laid on a black velvet cloth. . . But the sky has no wrinkles, and the Moon was standing, not lying down, not sitting.
In the end, the Moon is the Moon, and anything else is a diminishment. Each time I see the full Moon, I am pierced to the core again.
I walked on, finally, when the chill soaked my bones. The Moon vanished into the horizon. But its golden light stayed. I walked like my pockets were full of gold coins, warm between my cold fingers.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Lunacy
Waiting outside for a friend, I looked up and saw: the Moon. Clouds were shifting and boiling across the indigo sky, changing from silver to slate to pearl to black, in the pale light of the white orb. Through the winter branches of the stripped trees, her face shone steadily. I did not see her ancient stars, or think about her waning and waxing. Tonight the Moon was full. She hung in the sky illuminating the restless clouds with a steady and silent shine.
I stared Moonward, and the Moon stared back. What does my small scarred face look like through the black branches? What clouds boil around my eyes? The Moon stared as though none of it mattered.
I was the one who turned away first, to gaze at the trees standing like patient giants and the bright streetlamps that blazed like cold stars.
Tonight, I understood how one might worship the Moon.
I stared Moonward, and the Moon stared back. What does my small scarred face look like through the black branches? What clouds boil around my eyes? The Moon stared as though none of it mattered.
I was the one who turned away first, to gaze at the trees standing like patient giants and the bright streetlamps that blazed like cold stars.
Tonight, I understood how one might worship the Moon.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Madness
I do not want to see that wild hair again, yellowed like old elephant tusk. I do not want to see those thin fingers rake compulsively through it. How many times during that hour did that gesture flash by? As many times, perhaps, as I tried not to think about his sunken teeth, yellowed like his white hair, seen between lips also sunken and sere. As many times as I curbed a desire to leave. Now. Just get up, and go, nevermind my witness. As many times as I prayed for patience. As many times as my mind reached for replies that never reached my mouth, because of the river of words pouring from his pale lips.
He talked and talked, and never came to a point. He repeated the same words, the same phrases, entire paragraphs: contextualist, literalist, C.S. Lewis once said, That's like asking which side of the scissor is more important. Works. Pauline, Petrean, Your Communion says. If they had understood, Eat his flesh and drink his blood. The Third Council, the Nineth Council, in 310, in 321, in 68, not the Nineth Council, that was later. Peter II is the last book, not the Revelations, Revelations is not the last book. Chronologically.
His lips never rested. Even when no sound emerged, they gaped and stirred, unable to stem the flow of words for long. Words and words flooded out again, in that peculiar accent. I had to focus all my attention to catch those blurry-bordered words falling from his shriveled mouth, as his thin, thin hands repeated the same wild gestures, trying to remember, remember.
I would like not to remember. I do not want to see, even in my mind, that greasy white hair, or that faded denim jacket/shirt/pants. Especially, I do not want to see those crouching, blurred teeth, or those restless lips.
What I would like to see is the purpose of that hour. Please tell me, with clean white teeth in a mouth that does not reek of tobacco and that does not judge. Please tell me, and I will try to listen. I am good at listening, even when the speaker is not good at talking. Please.
He talked and talked, and never came to a point. He repeated the same words, the same phrases, entire paragraphs: contextualist, literalist, C.S. Lewis once said, That's like asking which side of the scissor is more important. Works. Pauline, Petrean, Your Communion says. If they had understood, Eat his flesh and drink his blood. The Third Council, the Nineth Council, in 310, in 321, in 68, not the Nineth Council, that was later. Peter II is the last book, not the Revelations, Revelations is not the last book. Chronologically.
His lips never rested. Even when no sound emerged, they gaped and stirred, unable to stem the flow of words for long. Words and words flooded out again, in that peculiar accent. I had to focus all my attention to catch those blurry-bordered words falling from his shriveled mouth, as his thin, thin hands repeated the same wild gestures, trying to remember, remember.
I would like not to remember. I do not want to see, even in my mind, that greasy white hair, or that faded denim jacket/shirt/pants. Especially, I do not want to see those crouching, blurred teeth, or those restless lips.
What I would like to see is the purpose of that hour. Please tell me, with clean white teeth in a mouth that does not reek of tobacco and that does not judge. Please tell me, and I will try to listen. I am good at listening, even when the speaker is not good at talking. Please.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Light/Dark
It's barely still Thursday, and the world is sleeping. My parents lie parallel in their immense bed, my sister tangles warm brown arms in her covers, then tosses them to the floor. . . I am sitting on the floor myself, in the dark.
Light has deserted this entire house, except this glowing screen, and I keep thinking I should push myself to my feet, uncross my legs, wend my way across the den (rendered maze-like by rearranged furniture) to the light switch that waits so stoically on the wall. I should not maroon myself in this blackness, should not fix my eyes on the screen. I feel like a traveler lost in a trackless forest, drowning in black branches and susurrating leaves, who can see only the moon, and so stares up at it. His world telescopes into that one white disc. His mind blocks out all that is around him: all he would be able to see in the day, and all that is beyond all that he would see. The dark still presses, but it slips off his mind, which is concentrating all its power on the Moon, the waxing gibbous Moon. He hugs himself in the dark dark dark, this small figure, and leans his head back. He gazes and gazes, lunatically.
And now I will darken my moon (my computer screen). I will rise and thread my steps through the furniture, tread gingerly across the papered floor, find my room, my bed. Find sleep.
Light has deserted this entire house, except this glowing screen, and I keep thinking I should push myself to my feet, uncross my legs, wend my way across the den (rendered maze-like by rearranged furniture) to the light switch that waits so stoically on the wall. I should not maroon myself in this blackness, should not fix my eyes on the screen. I feel like a traveler lost in a trackless forest, drowning in black branches and susurrating leaves, who can see only the moon, and so stares up at it. His world telescopes into that one white disc. His mind blocks out all that is around him: all he would be able to see in the day, and all that is beyond all that he would see. The dark still presses, but it slips off his mind, which is concentrating all its power on the Moon, the waxing gibbous Moon. He hugs himself in the dark dark dark, this small figure, and leans his head back. He gazes and gazes, lunatically.
And now I will darken my moon (my computer screen). I will rise and thread my steps through the furniture, tread gingerly across the papered floor, find my room, my bed. Find sleep.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)