I stepped outside Wednesday night to see the Lunar Eclipse. It looked much redder than this photo shows. I took several photos, but it was only 14°F and I had trouble holding the camera steady. Most of the photos look like this:
I stood outside alone to watch this; the kids weren't interested or they were already asleep. It was amazing. There are no street lights where I live and with the exterior house lights off it is very dark outside. Just my camera and I on my front lawn mesmerized by the earth's shadow passing across the moon. After a few minutes I started to feel how alone I was. I could see lights on in my neighbor's homes. Once there was a passing car but I was the only knucklehead standing out in the cold staring up at the moon. At that moment I missed Dennis and I nearly started to cry. I didn't because it probably would have frozen to my face.
In November, 2004 we all, Dennis, the kids and I, sat in the Totally Rockin' Minivan, that we'd pulled around the back of the house, drinking cocoa from a thermos and watching a total lunar eclipse. We ran the heater now and then and took a bathroom break during the totality phase. It was the dorky kind of fun we always have together. This past summer we got out the telescope, turned off the house lights and tried to see how many of Jupiter's moons we could make out. That was after trying to see how many were visible to the naked eye.
He's been gone for a month now and I was too cranky to blog for the first two weeks. Then I had blog fodder log jam (blogjam?); lots on my mind, stuff on my needles and hook, I even started a watercolor class but I just couldn't compose a coherent sentence let alone a whole post. He came home last weekend. A week ago today I was picking him up at the airport. Five-thirty Monday morning I was driving him back. It was wonderful but much too fast.
This is a very strange experience. Over the years I have adjusted to his going away for two weeks now and then. When he came home last weekend it felt like he had just done one of those two week trips. In the back of my head I knew that wasn't so but I couldn't shake the feeling. Wishful thinking I guess. Truth of it is this hasn't even really begun. He's not home but he's still in the US for training and will be for awhile. I knew this wasn't going to be easy but I didn't think I would have such a hard time. It's kind of like having kids: you think you know what you're in for but you can't really know until you're knee deep in it. You read the books, talk with people who've done it but talking it and walking it are two very different things.
I stood there in the cold and dark on Wednesday night, wearing my pj's and my winter coat, staring at the moon missing my partner in dorkiness. So, I texted him and I was grateful. Grateful that I can text him even though I knew he wouldn't respond until the next morning. Grateful because I get to talk to him every night. Mostly I was grateful that the reason I miss him so much is because we have such a good time when we are together.
You wrote eloquently and poignantly about your sense of loneliness and your sense of gratitude.
Holding you and Dennis in my thoughts...
- Lee
Posted by: Lee | February 24, 2008 at 02:01 AM
Thank you, Lee.
Posted by: Ellen-Mary | February 24, 2008 at 08:16 PM