The Moon Shines Over Us And In Our Heart Too

A little astronomy moon gazing story and how the moon can shine over us and inside of us too. I heard this on a TV show. “The moon shines over me, but goes first inside me. A moon stands for desolate isolation" and this said by Edwin Aldrin.He was also known as Buzz Aldrin, a now retired astronaut, who was the second man to set foot on the moon. The first one was Neil Armstrong who just passed away a few months ago. I guess Buzz summed it up when he said the moon is desolate isolation. He should know, he was there and saw it in all its glory and probably desolate too. When I was a kid, we use to look up at the full moon and imagine we could see people walking there; but never dreamed it would ever happen. Things we thought would not occur back then, sure have come into being now. Five year old granddaughter was visiting her grandparents (us) and she looked at me and said “you cut your hair”? I said no and I just did not have it fixed this past week. Then she looked at me and said “why don’t you have kids?” Her dad looked at her from across the table and said “she has kids, I am her kid and she and Grandpa are my Mommy and Daddy.” She knew that, but at that particular moment in time, she did not think of her Dad as my baby boy. Then she said “he lives with us now, we are a family.” Yes, dear child, you, your daddy and your mommy and your brother are a family; but all together we are all your family. It is how children learn about family, not only their own, but their Daddy's family which becomes a part of her and her Mommy's family which is her and that is how life goes on its ongoing journey. There are many corners on the street of life. There is the right hand corner turning to the right and that can become an invigorating journey to something very stimulating. There is the left hand corner turning to the left and that can be a place of intriguing happenings. You can choose which corner you want to walk by, right or left. One will lead you to a new road of happiness and the left one can lead you to a wealth of more knowledge. If you are lucky, you will turn one way one week and a few weeks later, turn to the other way. Then you will be fortunate in gaining the insight of two journeys down the street of life and it is up to you, which one you want to make your favorite one. You can climb the mountain of hope so far and then you have to decide if you want to continue or to go back to where you started from. My blind Aunt Ruth use to have a saying. She would say “I saw a good television show last night, we saw a wonderful new Broadway play last week, I am knitting a new dress.” A stranger upon hearing and then seeing her eyes closed from being blind would think to themselves “she cannot see, what is she talking about.?” Even with their eyes closed or sometimes when they open their eyes and see nothing, that is what you think. However, I am convinced since knowing these two blind folks, her and her brother, my Uncle George, that the blind have ways of seeing that we sighted people do not know about. They see with their fingers, their minds, their hearts and most of all their souls. They have been given a different sense because they have no sight. They are given the sense of their minds being quite keen and observant in a different way than we think observant means. They hear well and interpret what they hear and that becomes a substitute for their closed eyes. So we as sighted people should use our eyes to recognize, notice and be aware of things like the moon, the corners of the roads we can choose, the sweet sayings of little children that see things in their childish, but intelligent thoughts and most of all about ourselves who are smart enough to be aware of these events before us. Sometimes, we get involved with little petty things about us or our neighbors or relatives or people we work with and we feel overwhelmed by them. We should stand aside and maybe if it is night time, look up to the moon whether full or not and think about Buzz walking on the moon as the second man and realize that sometimes second can be just as wonderful as being first. There used to be a car rental company called Avis and they always bragged that they were number two in car rentals. By their admission, number two was pretty good too. So we can be number two like Avis or Buzz Aldrin, but we know in our heart, that we are really number one because we have turned the corner to either right or left and each way led us to hopefully happiness. Even blind Aunt Ruth was a number one person in her heart; she knew she could not visually see like all of us; but she could see in her own way. The darkness she saw, she did not let it darken her life. She was always happy, smiling and very articulate. The blindness to her was an obstacle she had overcome by finding other fine things about herself. We can all do that and if there is some darkness, we can lighten it up and walk on our own moon and see the light from it shining on us. As the saying stated “the moon shines over me and goes first inside of me.” When it goes inside of us, it lightens up the rest of our life. It is a moon lighting the way of the right and left corner and allows us to ‘see’ which turn to take. Either right or left will be fine and we will have completed our journey. elita sohmer clayman Fairfax Station