painted moon

my dear M.,  as i stepped outside this evening i was struck once again by the sublime  goodness of the moon.  its delicate orange crescent in the western sky skimmed the treetops and rained light-without-heat down upon the mountains that rise to the west of here.  toward where you live.  forming a pretty picture on a warm and humid august night while the cicadas sing.  


and i thought of you as i often do.  no secret that i think of you and you probably sense that anyway so i may as well say it.  i thought about you walking around the city and all the activity and music and noise and people and conversation at dinner.  and certainly you are with friends and with people who love you on this crescent moonlight night and there is a lot of good in all that.  


yet sometimes i get a sense that you might be tired from working all day and the activities of the week and with all that effort you may be ready for some downtime.  and maybe you would like to stand and look at the moon for a while and watch for shooting stars or chase lightening bugs.  maybe even sit down on a rock and somehow a small stream of cool water would appear just within reach of your feet so you could indulge, wouldn’t that be something?  


i sure am projecting a lot of silliness here but through no fault of my own since the moon makes me silly sometimes.  and the silliness does not have to stick and i sure hope it does not hurt or cross some boundary that i am oblivious to so it does not sit well with you.  it is only meant to coax a smile.  


anyway i was thinking about you out there in the moonlight and i was thinking how nice it is to talk and just say hello and hope your day is going good. and i like that a lot especially the part when we say a joke or simply talk about what’s coming up next or just the day.  just the moment.  


and i knew i wanted to say that to you but i was also thinking about your painting and i thought out loud that you are a remarkable person and i support you.  


but overall it is probably the best thing to give space so you can paint.  then i thought maybe the hardest thing about painting is to come up with ideas but that is kind of dumb because you have all sorts of ideas but then sometimes even a good cook needs a suggestion about what to fix for dinner because everything just looks the same in the refrigerator and there’s no inspiration coming from anywhere and everyone is hungry.  


then again maybe it’s not a topic at all that would help maybe it is just saying i am proud of you and that i will be here when you get back and i don’t need to hear everything because it will be inside and still swirling around.  maybe just knowing i love you is good.  i should have started with that because that’s the main thing i wanted to say anyway.  


and the moon of course.