What do we do when the world feels completely off kilter? Do we resort to flipping through our old memories, trying to recount the times in our lives when everything was right and true?
We’re lying in bed at 9:00 p.m. on a Thursday night. The room is dark except for the light from the full moon shining through the bedroom curtain. I can see the tiniest strip of twisted bittersweet vines, black silhouettes stretching sideways with the sky a deep navy behind them.
“Hey Google, play Keith Jarrett’s Always Let Me Go, I say.
“Playing albums is only available to Spotify premium subscribers. But give this Spotify Always Let Me Go station a listen,” says Google.
“You okay with this? I say.
My spouse Janyce is lying beside me on her back with the heating pad on top of her and the dog wedged between us. I can hear the faint sound of talking coming from the earphone tangle on the floor on my side of the bed. The other night, I lay awake with one earbud held up to my ear, listening to the latest NPR reporting of Iran missile strikes on US airbases while Janyce slept beside me.
“Yeah, this is okay,” she says.
I’m wide awake and trying to keep her awake with me a bit longer. We’re reminiscing about the event that set the trajectory of our relationship in motion: the night she left a slip of newspaper on my car windshield under the wiper blade.
“I must have been talking about the full moon in email for you to leave that on my car,” I say.
“I don’t know. But I do remember you were on the prowl then,” says Janyce. “Hey Google, what was the date of the Wolf Moon in 2008?”
“On the website Space.com they say Jan 22, 8:35 a.m. eastern standard time. Full Wolf Moon,” says Google.
“See, I knew it was only about a week,” she says.
It was biting cold in January that year. I left my car parked in a lot a few steps away from the commuter rail station in the center of town. I can still feel the air smack my face and picture the snow flurries swirling in the wind as I headed toward my car in the lamplight. A tiny square tucked underneath my wiper was coming into focus with each step I took forward, my heart beating fast and my breath creating steam in the cold night air.
It was a ripped piece of that day’s Boston Globe, a faded photo that looked more like an illustration, of the full moon rising over Boston next to the John Hancock tower looming gunmetal grey against the sky. I still have it, and I keep it in a cardboard box on my bookshelf along with every birthday and Christmas card Janyce has ever given me over the past twelve years. I’m usually not sentimental about keeping things. I give away piles of objects and clothing every year at this time. Yet the only thing I treasure more than the contents of that box is the single red Peony she picked for me from the backyard on my birthday that same year. It’s now brown and shriveled and still holding on to its crooked stem, balancing on the shelf in the foyer. I see it every day.
“I think my therapist at the time said, “Well, have you told her?” says Janyce. “And my answer to her was, ‘Are you crazy?’”
“Yeah, but then you left this moon on my windshield,” I say.
“Right, and judging from Google, it was only a week before I really did say something,” she says. “She asked me if I was ready to blow up my life. I guess by then I was.”
Earlier today, both of us were simultaneously snapping Instagrams of the 2020 Wolf Moon—Janyce from her office window, me from the street level in Copley Square, trying to capture the beauty of the hazy orb shining down onto brilliant city streets. “Meatballs and red wine at the bar on the way home, right?” I texted, while waiting for the green line trolley that would take us to our parked car in Jamaica Plain.
I haven’t been able to face the regular routine of our life still, even with the holidays truly over and despite the decorations I’ve left up adorning the house. All week, I’ve scrolled through posts raising money for animals dying in the Australia fires, read reports of earthquakes in Puerto Rico that have pushed whole families to sleep outside in the open air, and listened to commentaries about our President, recklessly striking out on his own without the backing of Congress, and leading us ever closer to a war that nobody wants. A plane carrying 176 people from Canada and Iran was shot down in midair this week. Even the novel I’m currently reading describes a bomb going off in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
What do we do when the world feels completely off kilter? Do we resort to flipping through our old memories, trying to recount the times in our lives when everything was right and true?
The Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar might say yes, in fact, we do. In his latest film Pain and Glory, the main character, played by Antonio Banderas, is a director nearing what he worries might be the very end of his career. He’s plagued with the physical and emotional pain of depression from losing his mother, losing his way as an artist, and losing his youth. But in the film, his depression is also a gift. He finds himself slipping in and out of past memories, reflecting on his life and remembering those pivotal moments when he felt most alive. It turns out that by fully savoring the moments in his life that changed him, he is able to once again uncover the inspiration to create something new.
Like Almodovar’s despairing main character, daily life right now feels scary and unstable, especially when everything I hear or read seems to be bad news. But I’m reminded that twelve years ago, despite being extremely happy, the two of us were also ending relationships, moving out of houses, meeting with lawyers, and experiencing the bitter pain of divorce. We leaned on each other’s friendship over many months to help us get through it all. It’s only now, with the benefit of hindsight and the power of memory, that the gloriousness of that time comes through when I need it most, the pain having long since faded away over the years.
“I’m going to leave after coffee on Saturday, but I’ll be back early on Sunday” I say.
Silence.
I look over at Janyce in the dark and see her steady breathing matching the same deep rhythm of the dog’s breathing, meaning that there will be no more talking tonight. I throw off the covers and toss the heating pad toward the window. Some time ago, it slid off of her and wedged itself between my arm and the pillow and now I’m too hot. Spotify has finally found the song I wanted to hear and the drums are beating out a steady percussive lullaby, except I know I’m hours from sleeping still.
I guess I could try to listen to the wind chimes lightly tinkling outside the window reminding me of cool summer breezes and lighter times, or I could put in my earbuds knowing full well that fresh horrors await me over the airwaves. I just have to decide whether tonight I’m choosing the pain of the present moment, or the glory of the sweetest past.