shooting the moon

He was almost too sleepy to think any more.
Then he looked beyond the thorn bushes, out into the big dark night.
Nothing could be further than the sky.
“I love you right up to the MOON,” he said, and closed his eyes.
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“Oh, that’s far,” said Big Nutbrown Hare. “That is very, very far.”
Big Nutbrown Hare settled Little Nutbrown Hare into his bed of leaves.
He leaned over and kissed him good night. Then he lay down close by and whispered with a smile,
“I love you right up to the moon – AND BACK.”

>>> from Guess How Much I Love You, by Sam McBratney

Reading has always been a HUGE part of my life. I can’t tell you how many nights I spent as a child, curled up on the living room couch listening to Mom read aloud.
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Charlotte’s Web, Treasure Island, the Boxcar Children, Homer Price, old Westerns, the Henty series. Allllll the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, Island of the Blue Dolphins, The Little Princess, Misty of Chincoteague, The Swiss Family Robinson, The Witch of Blackbird Pond.

And when I was younger… all those times curled up on Mom and Dad’s bed, piled high with pillows as my sisters and I all vied for the best spot… we all NEEDED to see the pictures EVERY time, even though we had the books memorized.
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The Giving Tree, Oh, the Places You’ll Go (and basically ANY Dr. Seuss), Katy and the Big Snow, those books about Francis the Badger. Make Way for Ducklings, Officer Buckle and Gloria, Amelia Bedelia, Cordoury… the list goes on.

But one of my favoritefavoritefavorites of ALL time is Guess How Much I Love You.

It’s a simple picture book with watercolor drawings of a baby rabbit and a daddy rabbit. They keep trying to outdo each other. (“I love you thiiiis much” kinda thing) I pretty much have that book memorized still.
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Even after twenty years of library trips and maxing out my card with too many loans, spending a million hours in bookstores and sitting on those slippery library couches that somehow manage to squeak even though you’re TRYING to be quiet… well. I haven’t found a kid’s book that comes quuuuitte that close.

I also think of that song… “I see the moon, the moon sees me… down through the leaves of the old oak tree. Please let the light that shines on me shine on the ones I love.”

My roommate, Tyler, and I disagree on whether it’s “ones” or “one” and weather the melody goes up at the end or down, but whatever. Mom taught it to us one night when we lived on Guam. We were on a walk after dinner – the moon was out and the dark was thick, like the humid air. But we sat on the curb somewhere in our neighborhood and watched the moon through the palm fronds and Mom taught  us that song.

So a few nights ago when there was that supermoon thing, Dad and I happened to be out by the airport, picking up a sister from abroad. Dad introduced me to this wonderful new invention called a “cell phone lot.”

“Cell phone lot”?
What the heck? I’d never heard of this thing in all my years of inhabiting airports.

Apparently it’s some place you can park and talk on your phone or watch the world go by while you wait for your sister’s plane to come in. Huh. What do ya know? Learn something new every day.

So we were sitting in this cell phone lot, and I realized that I love living in a rural area. Okay, okay, okay fine, I know that most airports are surrounded by open places because they have to have enough room for the runway, duh.

But how many airports have hay fields alongside their cell phone lots? Not many, I assure you.

And so I braved the mosquito and whatever could’ve been lurking in the dust of the hayfield to go shoot the moon.

Because I was only getting so far with those rear view mirror shots.

I was just waltzing out into the open field when an airport police car went whizzing by. Oh Lord. I thought. It’s the end of everything… I’m gonna be in such huge trouble. A criminal record?! This – ah!! – this is definitely a problem.

I was so busy trying to mentally go through whatever comebacks I could give to the officer – all the while thinking Gosh, Dad said this would be okay, I might just… be very unhappy with him… when I realized that the police car was gone. I couldn’t help it – I laughed out loud. The stopped as suddenly as I started. What would folks think if they saw a random girl in a baggy Florida sweatshirt kneeling in the dusty edges of a hayfield outside of the mysterious “cell phone lot,” clutching a camera and laughing out loud to herself? Ummmmm… let’s not go there, okay?

Boy. That was all worth it.

I am definitely not the best night-sky photog on the block. Have a little mercy, would ya?

And what’s the point of this story? I guess there really isn’t one…

We picked up my sis. We got to sleep around 1:30 and I woke up at 5 to drive Daddy right back to the airport. Gotta love the chauffeur life.

There is a point to this story, you know?

It’s that every time I see the moon, I think of being a kid again… my Mom and Dad reading that book while tucking me into bed or teaching me that old song on a humid night in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

It’s a constant reminder that there’s more to life than me. That no matter where I am in the world, I look up at the moon and I can know that it’s the same moon that’s shining on someone I love. That’s it’s never any bigger than my thumb, supermoon or no supermoon. The next one may not occur until 2034 or whatever, but hey. I like the ordinary moon too.

I’m going to stop yakking about the moon now. I think you might think I’m a little random/whacko/crazy. But maybe some of you agree with me about most of these rambles… because there’s someone in your life who loves you “to the moon and back.”

xoxo,
Hannah