It's the Simple Things: Watching the Moon

The other night I was in my house, feeling angry with myself for not doing enough work this holiday break. My head was flooded with ideas for projects, but instead of organizing them into a concrete plan I just continued to ruminate and obsess, which was obviously getting me nowhere. As I stared at the pile of manuals in my room, knowing that all of them could help me but not knowing where to begin, the electricity suddenly went out. The usual screams from the children in the neighborhood came and went rapidly and then there was nothing but silence and darkness. I started to reach for my flashlight when I noticed that outside of my window the street remained dimly lit. Intrigued, I forgot about the flashlight and my work and stepped outside. Directly in front of our house, nearly at eye level, stood the largest, brightest moon I have ever seen. I was struck by its beauty and size, and for a while could do nothing other than stand there, staring. I quickly felt the stress and anger and negativity I had been feeling melt away, leaving me in peace.

Just then, my host nephew came over and without saying anything gave me a big hug. We walked over to abuelo’s big rocking chair on the front lawn and sat together, memorized by the enormous globe in the sky, which was made all the more apparent by the fact that there were no other lights as far as the eye could see. Then, as if I wasn’t already happy enough, my host nephew says to me, “Morgan, did God turn off all the lights so we could see the pretty moon He made for us?”

At that point I had taken a complete 180-degree turn from frustration with myself to realization that I am not only here to work, but also to live, and be, and in that moment I felt more alive than I can ever remember. Pura vida.