New Moon

March, 2016
Tonight I walked outside around 6 pm to check out the skies.  The sun was down, but its light shown as a pale blue, with the outline of the mesa shrubs, one car, and the stair railing etched black against it.  The blue continued up, cloudless, darkening until overhead it was that deep velvety color, not indigo, not royal blue, but some luminous blue in-between.  About halfway up the arc was the clean paring of the new moon, parallel to the ground, cupping the darkening blue within its thin semi-circle.  It was a smile, a handle-less teacup, an offering bowl. 

Sometimes the new moon holds a star at its tip, sometimes the star is an eye, winking above the smile, but I liked the enigmatic Cheshire Cat nature of this moon's smile:  simple and solitary.  Here I am, it said, take it or leave it.  I have nothing to prove.

I wanted to sit, like Jane Eyre on the stile, watching the sky deepen to black, the sliver of moon brighten with the contrast,  as the earth turned and the night came on.  But, I had to go back inside.  I had two more hours of work, in the brightly light small room that we call a library.  There was one student in the computer lab,  another student talking to the work study student at the desk in CASA next door, and the adjunct professor who had been busily working at her laptop.

May, 2016
I wrote that two months ago.  I marvel at the serenity it implies.  I am anything but serene.  I have just turned 57.  I have been talking for years about retiring, and in February I actually penned a letter of resignation.  I was tired of being sick and just working and sleeping and coughing.  I  did not know what I wanted, but I didn't want to keep doing subpar work and being responsible to others.

My boss did not accept the letter and instead talked me into going to a 3-day, 30-hour work week.  I decided she was right:  if I want to figure out my health, it behooves me to have some health care available.  And so I moved out to the llano near campus, out of the suspected mold of my Taos condo, and I found a place to stay in ABQ for the other days off so I could see if the problem was environmental.

Two months later, I'm still second-guessing that decision.  I have a 6-month lease and a one-year FML, and G is fine with me hanging out at his place on the weekends.  I was able to play the spring APO concert (Mahler 2!) and see some ABQ friends, but that is all over now.  I've moved into my new place, which lets me see the skies from my window and listen to the doves and other birds that are nesting in the eaves of the backyard structures.  The vigas and tiles are what I love about southwest architectures, and the rich woods match the Tropical Salvage armoire and Grandpa Shapira's old desk.

This is as close to home as I've gotten, out here in the desert Southwest.  And, I'm still restless and unhappy. G calls it wanderlust, but that's not it.  I am searching, yes, but not for a place.  I'm searching for a life, a meaning. I'm searching for the serenity I felt watching that new moon two months ago.

Still, was I really feeling serene?  The reference to Jane Eyre says otherwise:  she was waiting, unknowingly, for Mr. Rochester to come tramping through the tranquil scene, bringing his harsh masculine worldly presence and changing her life for better or worse.  She had been pacing the halls, longing for a more exciting existence.  She, too, wanted out of her respectable, calm, useful life.

Yet, she returned to Thornfield and re-entered her servitude, just as I returned to the Library that night, and finished out my work day.  The difference is that change came to her.  I am creating change, but it's forced and unsatisfying.  I am beginning my 5th year in New Mexico, and I am as insecure and unhappy as the day I arrived.  T once said, within a year of my divorce I'd have more money and less weight.  That's true, but it's not enough.