It's time for that ol' Harvest Moon again, and this year, much of the country won't be seeing it due to stormy weather. It makes me sad, but most things do these days. I got sad last night when I ran up to the drugstore just at sunset. It was a beautiful Friday night with a light breeze and dipping temperatures. I'd been sitting out watching the tattered flag in the patriotic across the street neighbor's yard flutter in the light breeze and the slight motion of the trees just before dark. Driving to the store, I had to pass by the football stadium of the local high school and could see the families in the stands, the lights shining against a cobalt sky, kids standing around in groups just outside the stadium, others just arriving, the girls walking with studied lanquidity and dressed in such things I won't describe, the teenage boys all quick with hormonal excitement, sudden ticks and jerks punctuating the air, and I felt a sad lonesomeness at not really being out knowing what the Boulevard would be like on such an evening, the sidewalk tables filled with village elite, handsome men and expensive women, and were it another time. . . I'd be joining someone for a drink.
I parked the car and followed an attractive woman into the liquor store where I picked up a bottle of scotch and was checked out by a young girl with sniffles and a cough who looked miserable working until closing on a Friday night. Walking back to the car, I glanced up to see the moon 45 degrees above the horizon shining big in the cloudless sky. Night had fallen and the stadium lights lit the way as I drove back to my mother's thinking that the stands were filled with parents and younger siblings of the boys on the field, together joined to an American past and to each other by the same ritual occuring all across the country ten thousand times over. In ten years, at high school reunions, those boys will still be talking about "the big game." And those girls. . . .
More American Graffiti. It seemed rather hideous.
And so, back at my mother's house, dinner cooked, pots and pans and dishes washed and counters cleaned. . . I sat down on the couch to watch t.v.
I thought I might run out to that farmer's market in a distant town this morning. Looking back at photos, I found it has been a year this month since I last went. Jesus. . . my life is drifting by without event or notice.
But I woke up this morning with something like a head cold, and I think about the girl who packaged my whiskey at the liquor store. I always wait until October to get a flu shot, but there is no knowing what to do any longer with a gutted CDC and a defunded NOAA. We have regressed to some medieval condition of medical mysticism and looking to animals for weather predictions.
The morning is wearing on, and my mother has gone back to bed, so I will not be getting an early start. I may not get started at all. I think I need to make a pot of chicken soup with a whole lotta garlic. And crusty sourdough bread.
Yea, I don't think I'll get out of town.
Normally, I post a Harvest Moon song on this day with some cryptic message about love and romance, but I am beyond hope this year. I thought about posting Tiny Tim's parody of "Shine on Harvest Moon," as a snotty gesture, but that seemed too much.
For all of you who did enjoy the night. . . .
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