Musings Under the Moon

Image created by Photographer Janet Hoots

The clouds blew swiftly across the night sky, dancing with a moon so full of light that even when covered its beams escaped. My thoughts drifted along with the warm Spring breeze, back to a random conversation recently shared amid a room full of happy Blues-goers.

The song playing was a sad one, about heartache and loss, a classic Bluesy theme, I commented, "Love often has teeth." The woman nearby replied, "It does. And some things never heal completely." I agreed, swaying to the beat of a tune most know well, at least by way of life experience. One gentleman said, "Better to have never felt, than to suffer from the loss." Here I vehemently disagreed. "Even when it hurts, the experience is still better than the 'nothing'", I told him, as inside, I shuddered, vividly remembering how horrible complete nothingness felt."But how do you know what you're missing if you've never had it before?" he asked. "You can't ache for something you don't know."

"Haven't you ever felt that somewhere deep inside you something was missing? Some unnamed thing that you can't quite put your finger on? A void that longs to be filled, but with what, you're just not sure?" He paused, "Yes." And after the song was over, almost in afterthought he asked, "What is that void for you?" He didn't really want to know the answer, instead merely making idle topically relevant conversation, but that was okay. It was at that point I'd already begun to tune him out anyway, my own mind now hyper-focused on answering the question that was merely making small talk for him, but meant very much to me.

The moon brought me back into the now, alone on my deck in the late evening and away from the crowded Blues scene. Bits of stars fought to shine alongside Bella Luna's majestic light, surrounded by a sea of black in between. Black, like those little voids found, I think, in all of us...voids that sometimes feel as vast as that glorious night sky, and other times, merely a speck of black ink on a large piece of paper, all but forgotten from notice as other words, new words and chapters and volumes fill up the page.