Missing Moon
Has anybody seen the moon? I haven’t. Not in at least a week, maybe more. The night sky has been so overcast that no stars can be seen. No moon is evident. There has been a fair amount of snow lately which brings clouds and covers the lights I look for. I have mentioned how Coleen loved to look at the moon and stars and often did so from our bathroom window. She would be disappointed with all things overhead right now, as am I.I feel a strong bond with her through the moon and frankly, I’m a little pissed that I haven’t seen it for so long. I wanted to see what I was missing so just now I googled “moon cycle” and found an interesting website. It’s called moonconnection.com and among many other things, has charts of how the moon looks for every day of every month from 1930 to 2024. On the chart for this month, there was no moon visible for last night, January 1, 2014. The reason is last night it was a “new moon” which means it is virtually blocked by the sun. No wonder I couldn’t see it. Not only that, but when I went backwards and looked at the moon’s phases for the past week, it was only a sliver of a crescent making it difficult to find on cloudy nights. The coming nights will offer gradually larger crescents until it reaches its full stage on January 15th. That is three nights shy of Coleen’s anniversary which always troubles me so much. The moon won’t be full on that night, but pretty close.
Just for fun, I checked what the moon looked liked on the day Coleen was born, the day I was born, and the day we were married. I thought there might be a common thread somewhere but the moon was in a different phase each of those days. I took the plunge and looked ahead at September 18 of this year which will mark one year since her death. That was a dumb thing for me to do because I shouldn’t be thinking that far ahead. I shouldn’t be thinking ahead at all. I’m much better off with my feet underneath me and by staying synchronized with the present. Otherwise I get swept away to Sadnessville and I have already visited that place enough for now.
I also downloaded an app for my iPhone called Luna Solaria. It shows me what stage the moon is in, it’s lunar position, how far away it is, the date it will be full, what sign it’s in, and what times it rises and sets. I don’t know what I’m going to do with all that information but I’m glad I have it. Coleen would have wanted to know some of that from time to time. You never knew what she would be interested in next. And maybe, just maybe, by keeping closer tabs on the moon’s activity I can keep closer track of her, too.