Looking for Luna
In August, I’d read about the lunar eclipse and thought- what the hell. We need to break up the routine and this could even quality as an ADVENTURE. Usually our idea of an adventure is feeding more than 300 tickets into the Chuck E Cheese ticket muncher then standing in line for 30 minutes watching children choose between a rubber ball or a spider ring. Woo-hoo!
As a pilot’s daughter, I’ve always romanticized the sky. I remember getting up in the middle of the night with my Dad to see Hayley’s comet in 1976 . I can still see a splash of chalky milk against a dark Sacramento, Calif. night. I felt both in awe of the universe and also very safe under his arm. He bought a telescope and always knew the right time to see a constellation or even Jupiter.
In my adventure with the stars, there was little planning, no telescope - not even binoculars. It was a clear night and the alarm worked so at 3:30 a.m. kiddo and I backed out of the garage and into our adventure. We drove up and down streets looking like we’re trying to find a lost dog. I think my child even called out, “moon, where are you, moon?” I started to worry after 15 minutes or so and anti-climatic thoughts started to crash the moon party. Then, we caught it.
I pulled over on the 91 freeway and she crawled over the console and sat in my lap. The shadowed moon was the color of Alabama clay–appropriately enough, sitting in the Southern sky. We identified cloud shapes- I saw an animal and she saw a butt and we laughed a lot.
Tucking her in, I was so proud of myself. Now, Claire and I had our moment under the sky.
