It's Supermoon!

It’s The Supermoon!

Look, up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s… Supermoon.

It’s hard to describe how cheated I feel. Our normally cloudless Southern California sky is dramatically overcast and I can’t see it. I got a glimpse of it at one point, a very large, very bright orb of light behind a lacy cloud. But as for actually seeing the moon at its largest in 18 years, I doubt that I will be able to see it tonight.

The last time there was a lunar perigee like this one I wasn’t yet a mother. I saw the moon that year, and I remember wondering what life had in store for me.

This year, while I can’t see the moon, I can my eighteen-year-old daughter, who recently received her acceptance letter from the University of California At Santa Cruz. (Go Banana Slugs!) I can see her brother, the sixteen-year-old who lives for jazz choir, and the thirteen-year-old twins, soccer enthusiasts, gamers, and unfettered science geeks. I see a perfectly chaotic house and a dog and some pretty lively family vacation photos.

I see a row of books on the shelf that bear my pen name.

Life happens fast, doesn’t it?

Back when I looked up at that other moon, I couldn’t begin to imagine everything that would happened to me in the span of 18 years.

That was a lifetime ago. And in one very real sense, I am not the same person. I started writing on a dare from my kids and my goal of one day getting published seemed about as far away as the moon itself. Even at its closest, the moon seems to be a bright, shiny, yet very unreachable goal to pursue.

But one small step at a time, one word, one paragraph, one badly formatted bit of dialogue, one page, one chapter, one book, and it all came together.

Soon, I had something to share with the world. I’ve been published since 2008. I’ve written twelve or so novel-length works in that time, several novellas, and some short stories that have found their way into anthologies.

This year if I could see the moon, I would imagine that it knows I feel wonder with regard to all that has transpired.

I feel gratitude.

I anticipate more hard work, more challenges, and more fun. I’d tell everyone I know to look up and imagine where they could be in the next eighteen years. I'd tell them to imagine change.

Imagine equality. Imagine religious tolerance. Imagine making major advances in medicine. Imagine civility. I imagine all of this and I will to put forth every effort to make it a reality by the next time that big moon rolls around.

~ZAM~
zamaxfield@yahoo.com
http://zamaxfield.com
http://zamaxfield.livejournal.com/