another ring around the moon
Some periods set you straight by blowing you off course. That was September: a big party, a wedding, a memorial, random reunions with people from distant chapters of my past, chance romances, the rapid acceleration of work projects.
The full moon a few weeks ago marked the mid-autumn harvest festival, or chuseok, the apotheosis of traditional Korean traditional celebrations, all of which involve gathering the family, performing rites to honor the ancestors, and eating tons of special foods, but this one especially. In a hammock on drugs in the woods, squished between four of my dearest friends, I decided I was celebrating it in my own way. DJ Fart in the Club played the final set of the weekend, and when I told them it meant something to me that a Korean dj was closing the festival, they said, oh shit I have to text my parents, thanks for reminding me. I texted my mom and dad that I loved them. My dad replied, “I know. Family is here for bbq for chuseok.” That made me smile.
I haven’t been writing, and I haven’t been thinking about writing. I’ve been reading Memoirs of Hadrian, Marguerite Yourcenar’s masterwork, mostly on my long commutes to and from work. I can not imagine what leads a writer to decide they can and will inhabit the voice of a Roman emperor and render in it his autobiography, but I’m grateful that it was Yourcenar who did.
The dismal times are thickening around all the felicities. They assert themselves in bracketing our congratulations, our expressions of simple gratitude—everything is terrible, but. The train stops in the tunnel for fifteen minutes before we are told it will be turning back, because the third passenger in two months on this line alone has been struck by another train three stations ahead. The passenger next to me wordlessly offers me a Hi-Chew.
At some point in the middle of the night, long after the other guests had gone to sleep, he put on his clothes and left. I waited several minutes until I guessed he’d made it all the way down the hill to his car. Then I put on my jacket, stepped outside the cabin to go pee in the field, looked up, and saw the brightest, freakiest halo I’ve ever seen around the moon.
I keep a small whiteboard propped up on my desk, on which I keep a running list of objectives. “Standardize bedtime” has remained there since I started this practice in June, unerased. Maybe this month I will.