A Sturgeon Moon
“Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.” -Sydney J. Harris
I left you with “Celebrations,” sprinkled amongst a summer of ellipsis… the unspoken...the unknown...the question: what comes next when staring at a new season of life, especially when winter falls before our summer has even been written.
I had time to think as I recovered from Covid over the summer–an oddity that I managed to avoid contracting it while teaching, but the moment my body rested, she came knocking on my door with a bitter chill. In my feverish state, I remembered an old friend who told me when I was in the throes of CIDP treatment that all I needed to do was focus on the next thing; the next step, sitting up, brushing my teeth, putting on deodorant, pulling a shirt over my head. Asking for help.
Give myself permission to not know the end of a sentence; let it teeter off a cliff as the most dangerous dangling modifier.
I turned 42 since we last met. I celebrated in Ft Myers Beach, Florida on an annual vacation I take with my mom. We meet our “Florida Family'' for swimming, fellowship, and beach time https://www.instagram.com/jsaucecreates/ (link to Instagram for some photo memories). This was the first time in years that I walked the beach with some help. I don’t have words to encapsulate the years of memories from walking miles on that beach, to being unable to do so, to taking a few baby-steps to the water.
Baby-steps are precious.
We gathered together on the lanai, overlooking the Sturgeon Moon. One meaning placed upon the Sturgeon moon is that it symbolizes perseverance and the ability to adapt with time and change just like the sturgeon according to some astrologers. I put down my phone and looked around me. There were seven of us that I recognized eating cake, plus a few newcomers in my orbit. An orbit that once held a group of fifteen people, cake, cards, beer, water, milk, smiles, haziness. Love.
The laughter of those lost to death or simply because they now landed in a new realm grazed the periphery of my mind. Faint laughter and shadows of younger versions of all of us floated before me. I blinked and really looked forward. New faces smiled just as brightly and sang just as loudly as we pretended to blow out candles in a traditional celebration with a new cast of characters. A quieter life but no less meaningful. Change.
The deep drawl of “Jonathan” turned my head as the party ended. It came from a 27 year old man that I once played “catch the fishy” with in the pool when I was 18 to his 4 year old self.
“Christian?”
He hugged me after years of not seeing him in the familiar water of the pool. We sat together on the lanai–dishes with caked frosting and runaway napkins beneath our feet as we revived the past and discussed the present. We did not speak of the future. Life had scattered not just our physical presence, but the direction we thought we were heading in. There’s a melancholy yet beautiful thread that is never severed when there is kindness. When there is love.
On my 42nd birthday I was able to live in the present. He cares for his grandparents now. He grew up. I thought he only played a little fishy in the pool. I thought I could only teach.
We are more than our pasts. Allowing our hearts to catch up to our minds, well, now there’s the tricky part. It was easier to stoop down to pick up those napkins and frosting caked plates as midnight approached. “You take care of yourself. You take good care of yourself, Christian.” He hugged me as I hobbled toward my condo.
I make my way slowly to the sliding doors of our balcony and throw my weight into pushing open one slider a few inches. I hear the waves, unseen in the darkness, caressing the sand. The moon is higher now. So bright. It’s a paradox that there can be brightness that can outshine the blackest night, but after all, isn’t that what I write about?
How lucky I am to see the Sturgeon Moon.
How lucky that on the ripples of the Gulf before me, friends old and new have floated into my orbit.
How lucky to taste the buttercream frosting on my cake. How lucky to hold the fork myself, the darkness hiding the tremors in my fingers.
How lucky to feel my body in the space of the brightest and blackest of nights.
The next sentence is not yet formed. How scary and thrilling to see what will happen when I touch down in Chicago.
I fall unwritten into change.
The Sturgeon Moon as seen from my condo during the night with the Gulf of Mexico shimmering below it.
