Goodnight Moon...

Can I share a story with you? It's one I've always wanted to tell somebody...but since no one has ever asked, here it is: A long time ago, when I was just a small stupid kid, my father sat me on his knee and pointed up the full moon with a big smile on his face. "You wanna know a secret?" He waited until I had looked up at the sky before he continued. "Did you know the full moon can drive people crazy?  Her name is Luna, and that is why all of the Lunatics are her children. I was a lunatic once. One day, you will be too." My father didn't realize it at the time, but he was imprinting a memory onto me that would last forever. I had never heard of the moon turning people into lunatics, but as I looked up at the brilliant white orb in the sky, I began to imagine why. "When I was your age," he continued, still pointing skyward,"I fell in love for the first time. I thought the moon was a beautiful woman and I would stare at her for hours alone in my room at night. Everybody laughed at me but I didn't care." He smiled at me, his face now bathed in soft blue moonlight. This man did not look my father anymore. In the eerie pale glow, he looked like some sort of angelic creature. I had never seen nor will I ever see my father in the same reverent way again. I remember my heart pounding. I remember thinking the moon was really driving me crazy or distorting my vision in some way. The moment was too perfect. I was too ridiculously happy for any of this to be real. I wanted to see my father in that soft white light forever. I didn't want the moment to go away. But it did. And my father stood up and gently unglued me from his knee. "The moon is your real mother, VC," he said quietly. "Don't ever forget it. That is the face of the only woman I have ever truly loved." Then he brushed the dirt off his jeans and walked back inside the house, leaving me dazed and bewildered on the grass. 


...The moon was my real mother. And all her children were lunatics. What a concept. 


Maybe I am a lunatic. Perhaps my father was right. Whether I am Luna's daughter or not, I will always love the moon. She will always be a source of creative wonder for me. Tonight I will look upon her again and ask for courage and inspiration. I just have to believe that I can tell my story through my novels. I just have to keep dreaming...