Waxing and Waning
Daddy stoops next to me and chews on an unlit cigar. “Do you see the man in the moon?” He points to the bloated white orb ruling our south side Chicago street. I make out lopsided eyes, a nose, a mouth. Daddy calls out, “Hello, Mr. Moon.” Looking back at Daddy, I echo, “Hello, Mr. Moon.” Then Daddy lights his cigar. The smolder skews my nose and twists up to the sky.
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At a glance, you know whether the moon is waxing or waning, growing or receding from full. It’s a matter of which side of the moon is lit on its silent, perpetual passage from wholeness to invisibility.
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Some years later, Dad shakes me awake. “Men are walking on the moon,” he says. My two younger sisters and I spin around him like satellites and into our living room universe. My polyester nightgown scratches the pimples on my back. I study the pockmarks on the lunar surface, inches away on TV. Astronaut Neil Armstrong bounces off the ladder and says, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” The statement ends in static. I like the words and feel a little galaxy open.
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The waxing moon is always lit on the right side. It is newborn and swelling, sliver by sliver, celestial crescent in crescendo, promise and potential, eternally tugging at the tides, craters quietly keeping time.
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“I’ll take the day off,” Dad says. I feel weightless; he never misses work. I am going through a phase where I want to be an astronaut, and I worship the visiting heroes. Dad and I take the L downtown and watch the Apollo 14 astronauts receive the keys to the city from Mayor Richard J. Daley. Years in the future, I attend what becomes Mayor Daley’s last public appearance, minutes before gravity drops him dead from a heart attack.
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Next arrives the full moon, engorged, shining, glowing, the mute maximum
moon, enlightened at full strength, always showing just one side in synchronous
rotation, the intimate infinite man in the moon.
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As two girlfriends and I pull into a campsite for a camping weekend, we wonder why a constellation of men are standing around at the other sites. Then I notice the telescopes. Dozens of them. It’s a star party. Amateur astronomers are there to study the stars under the darkness of the new moon. One friend keeps calling them astrologers. The guys invite us to view the planets, novas giving birth, the Milky Way, and entwined gassy nebulae of dying stars. As we orbit among the telescopes, one astronomer asks for my phone number. We end up dating a little. It’s through him, and because of that new moon, that eventually I meet my husband.
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After fullness, the moon begins to wane, always lit on the left, going gibbous, its impermanence permanent, still bright but shrinking in immortal heavenly motion.
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My husband and I, married for many moons, sit in our backyard with one pair of protective eclipse eyeglasses. It’s 2017, and eclipse lunacy has gripped us and the whole United States. Some parts of the country will view a total solar eclipse--the only time you behold a new moon. In our location, it will be a 91 percent eclipse. The moon begins creeping over the sun in mid-afternoon, and for a moment I’m breathless. We take turns wearing the glasses during our cozy sky show for two. Just as the eclipse ends, it starts to rain. We thank our lucky stars.
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The waning moon ages bit by bit until there is no moon. This stage is called the new moon, ghostily gliding around the globe in everlasting transience, its waterless seas close but concealed.
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Cycles and tides. Oxygen and air. Developing then dying. Waxing now waning. Tonight, I gaze at the swollen moon and see clouds curl by its face, like smoke. I whisper, “Hello, Mr. Moon.” Then, I swear, he’s echoing back to me.
Susan Pines has worked as a newspaper editor, advertising copywriter, book editor, and communications manager. Pines lives in Indianapolis and has taken courses at the Indiana Writers Center.