Strawberry Moon

The moon has the ability to both surprise and settle me, startle and calm. As it did last Sunday when the sky blinked clear of spring time clouds to bare stars again and a thin bright “waxing crescent smile” or that same sliver of moon against a dimming autumn dusk that forced dad and I to quit work for the day and walk up from the fields together while night settled in before dinner. But as I write this now I am thinking especially of one night, of the full strawberry moon of last June.

Its waxing days were my waning days in Chicago, spent packing up my apartment, saying goodbye to friends, tying up loose ends. At the end of the day Davi (my housemate and best friend) and I would walk east through the circles of streetlights, stopping to buy 40s at the corner store under the el tracks, passing the park where children played late into the night while their fathers chatted nearby, and ending at a five block stretch of beach front deserted after a busy afternoon, the sand dented with footsteps, the smell of bbqs still lingering in the air. I remember these ritual walks down the beach always in half-light—absent of the car headlights and store signs shining a few blocks away, yet lit enough to see where water met sand, to watch Davi’s face as she talked, to feel safe. Sometimes we would also see the moon, hanging out above the water, above its own reflection stretched out and rippling. Yet this Chicago moon was one-dimensional: full, crescent, or half had the same affect—pleasing my eye, but not aiding it to see more, to dissuade the dark.

My mom comes down and we load up the farm truck with everything I own. We are on the road by noon, and then after a long day of driving, we pull up our driveway at dusk. The first night I sleep in my old bed in my old bedroom in my parent’s house and the next morning, my brother and my dad take time out from their work on the farm to help mom and I unload the truck, carrying cardboard boxes and milkcrates of my stuff into little house just up the driveway from my parent’s house, my grandma dale’s old house. They stack my things in the living/dining room and then head back out to the fields. Tomorrow I will join them, but today I am inside all day, cleaning and unpacking; I just want to be settled. I have been thinking about this day for so long—imagining my dishes in my grandma’s cupboard, my books on her shelves, my bed along the window in the upstairs loft. At five I drive to Washburn to train in at StageNorth, where I’ve picked up a part-time bartending gig to supplement the income I’ll make working on the farm. Before heading home I stop to buy groceries. At the store, I am overwhelmed thinking of my empty fridge and pantry, so I decide to just focus on breakfast, putting bagels and cream cheese and a bunch of bananas in my basket. I will have to wait for milk and coffee I decide, as I have also been fantasizing about my a trip up Nevers Rd to buy milk from Tetzers, the dairy where my family has bought their milk since I can remember, and then on the way back to the highway pulling in to buy coffee and chat with Harry, my friend Kate’s dad who runs a coffee-roasting business. I love catching up with Harry over a cup of coffee or bottle of beer, but today I know I don’t have the time or energy, also I promised myself that I would get a run in. It is dusk when I pull up the driveway. I’m tired and worried I’ll be running in the dark, but I dart inside anyway. Drop groceries on the counter. Change into running shorts and shoes and head out the door. Even if it’s a just a short one, I think. I’m training for a long distance run at the end of August. In Chicago I had been running five to seven miles every other day, but with the commotion of packing and moving it’s been almost a week since I’ve gotten a good one in. I head down the driveway and turn left—choosing hills over flats, in order to wear myself out quicker, thinking I’ll have to cut it short as I loose the last bit of daylight. Bending past Frizell’s driveway, and then the first small hill bordered by Tom Galazen’s almost ripe strawberry patches on either side, flat again and then dipping down after the drive into Johnson’s apple orchard. Up to Chelsea’s driveway and then a sharp left onto the rough patch of pavement that connects Valley Rd to County J in its steep ascent to the top of the hill. My legs burning, my heart racing, I tell myself, “If I can make it even half way up, I can turn around.” And then as I come out on J, I am reenergized by the round orange glow of a huge full moon creeping up from behind the pines that line the road. Only on this day, at this time, at this spot, does this exist like this, I think. I keep going so I can keep watching it—climbing as I climb. I must have caught a glimpse of the growing moon in the nights before this one, yet wasn’t expecting this. I no longer need to rush my run. Tonight, real darkness won’t come.

poem post-city

11/26/08

I’ve spent a week waking up in other people’s apartments,
sleeping under their blankets,
between their sheets,
with the muffled lights and noises from the street shining in
through the window. It’s a kind of intimacy.

In New York everywhere there is talent, a beautiful face,

possibility.

Out of nowhere, he writes to me:
Bayfield was mentioned in the redeye.
Is that my nephew in my profile pic?
Will I be coming down to Chicago at all? (read: Am I still interested?)
He might be up north for Christmas.

I reply:
i'm in nyc right now--catching up with oberlin peeps when they have time for me in the midst of their busy nyc lives, realizing i really am living in a different world from them, a different pace, but it is still nice to visit.... to sleep in while they get up to go to work, to eat my breakfast on fire escapes and watch the pigeons and people rushing around. in a few minutes i'll leave anne's key under the mat and walk/train to the bronx to visit ellie at the cuny campus where she is
teaching art history.

His is as fleeting as the faces at the airport,
seen only in the length of a layover,
attractive at first glance,
and because I’ll likely never know the rest.

Like poetry,

I can love the city, in small doses.

Driving home I look out at the open road and the open sky,
the leaveless tress and a horizon unboxed by buildings,
and I think that is also the difference—
not as much to create upon, but so much more space to fill,
or choose to leave uncluttered.

Decemeber 1

I finished working on the farm half way through November, spent a week playing in the city, and came home for Thanksgiving. I told myself through all of this, “I’ll get it done in December.” So this morning, December 1st, I woke up, showered and dressed, ate breakfast, and left. I staked out a table at the coffee shop in town, opened up my laptop, bought a cup of coffee, and sat down to work. I spent the morning getting other business out of the way—replying to emails and cleaning up an interview. Laura sat with me while I ate lunch and encouraged me to start swimming again, said she would even give me lessons if I go while she is lifeguarding. After she left, I did too. I stopped by the post office and the grocery store quick, before moving my “office” to the library. I requested a couple books through interloan and then found a spot at a table and opened up my laptop again. I logged in to facebook quick and updated my status: Magdalen is working on her thesis, lol—an inside joke to Cory, who says since I have decided to write my thesis about our friendship it isn’t procrastinating when I take time to write a note on her wall. Then I logged into gmail and did a search for “cory” which brought up a page of email threads. “1-20 of hundreds” it said. I clicked “next” and “next” and “next” until I got to the end (a page that said “554-574 of 574”) and then I opened #574, an email from Cory to me written on March 24, 2005. There had been emails before this one, to my hotmail account in high school, and then to my college account, but I think most of those are lost now, and really those were less significant anyway, less confessional, and more just saying ‘what’s up?’ and holding on to a friendship we weren’t totally sure still existed. But gmail documents our renaissance—raw and lengthy emails back and forth leading up to and during and after my break-up with my college girlfriend and Cory’s divorce from her husband. I begin to wade through the email threads. Copying and pasting the best ones (which are most of them) into a word document to be printed and marked up later: research. A little before five, I quit for the day and send Cory an email:

hey chica.

oh man... i just spent five hours copying and pasting our email convos
from gmail into a word doc so i can print it out. i made it through
82 email threads out of 574 (575 after i send this one :) and i have
76 pages of text in the word doc. i should just send that in as my
thesis!! :) i wish. ha. right now i am navigating the years of cory
working three fulltime jobs and waiting for stupidface to tell her he
loves her and magdalen flying around to play rugby, getting smashed
every night and miraculously making her way home (usually) while
swooning over sarahs (plural). bleh. so glad that's not our life
anymore! also about 50 pages into all this pasting a little alert
pops up in word that states: "There are too many spelling or
grammatical errors in "coragdalen emails" to continue displaying them.
To check the spelling and grammar of this document, choose Spelling
and Grammar from the Tools Menu." haha.. i thought that was too
funny. i had to write it down word for word so i could share it with
you.

alright. it's dark out. this work day is over. time to go home and
cook some dinner. i love my new job! and you!

-m

Then I shut my laptop, put on my coat, say goodbye to the librarian and get in my car to drive home. The sky is dark now, and winding through the cemetery I smile at the sliver of moon shining just above the trees. From my driveway, I can see it even better—the moon and two planets, the three brightest points in the sky, all in a tight triangle together. I put the car into park and pull paper and pen from my bag to draw a quick sketch. After parking in the garage, I grab my stuff and jog up to my house. I call mom to let her know that she and dad are still welcome to come up for dinner and that it will be ready around 7. I change into sweatpants, put music on, start the rice cooker, and begin to chop chicken and veggies for stir fry. I have just finished cooking and setting the table and am opening a bottle of wine when I see them walking up the path bundled in jackets and hats and boots. After we have dished up and sat down to eat, dad asks me, “how was your day?” I tell them about my December goals and treating today like a workday, about the coffee shop and potential swimming lessons, the library, and sorting through Cory emails. I take a long tangent to bring them up to date on how I am approaching my thesis now—just focusing on my friendship with Cory, the first chapter already written, and the following chapters documented in emails over the past three years, and my journal from this summer. “This summer was hard,” I tell them. “We were both so excited for me to move home, but then we were in such different places and not connecting, but I feel like on her last trip up here we started clicking again, and it feels so nice to have that in my life again.” I am crying as I am telling them this and also about how we have always seen our friendship as being controlled by something bigger, something in the sky, and then dad tears up too and asks if I saw the moon tonight. He tells me it’s maybe once in a hundred years that we’ll have a sky like that, with the three brightest points all in alignment.