Full Moon

Full moon tonight.

So?

Confession: I’m not one for astrology or star alignment studies. If these interest you, I mean no offense, nor do I know much about it. I just don’t get the attraction to explore and classify in this way.

But the phases of the moon are a different matter. The Jewish calendar is a modified lunar calendar, and our holidays revolves around it. The full moon and the new moon tell of what part of the month we’re in. The part of the month tells of the next holiday. Most Jewish holidays fall on a full moon.

Realizing it’s tonight, brought back the last full moon at our home, about a month ago, and the howling and powerful gusty night we had.

We lost power a bit after nine PM. In the pitch dark, it dawned on me that the only ones home, beside myself, were two new kittens and one older cat we had just adopted. DD was babysitting a few houses down, and DH had gone to a local board meeting. The challenge for me was not only to find candles, but to find places to put them where the cats would not knock them down. I managed three such places.

I called DD to see if she was alright with the two three-year-olds in her charge. They were more than fine. The little girls each own an IPad, and they were streaming a children’s movie. The little ones, just like my kittens, were anything but sleepy. Not the darkness, but the powerful gusts kept everyone enervated, for good (the kids) and for bad (me and the older of our cats, who mewed and ran all over the place for hours.)

When the grandparents returned, DH returned also because the meeting was canceled. He went with a flashlight to walk DD back. She promptly went to sleep, while her mother (me) couldn't sleep all night. Not only was the house rattling, but things were slamming against it, two widows popped open from the pressure, and our car alarm (as well as other alarms) kept going off because of things slamming against it.

But it was my husband who reminded me that we didn't need the candles after all. He opened all the curtains, and the light of the full moon came flooding in.

By the time the windstorm was over, there were a few deaths and a lot of debris all over town. Just one house-length up our street a tall pine tree was down, blocking most of the Avenue. As our utilities are underground, this had nothing to do with the outage we had. But driving around it was impossible. I had to walk to the other side of the street to retrieve our garbage containers. 

It’s nothing when compared to the disaster in the Philippines, but it was as strong a wind as I’d want to experience for a long time. I have been in one hurricane in New York, (turned out not to be much) and one in Florida, (they know how to handle those there) but this was the most whoosh-wow wind-storm I recall, even counting these.

Calmer full moon tonight, please.

© Shelagh Duffet