well, you forget!

The penumbra/umbra and umbra/penumbra parts are like watching paint dry, only it's ruining a perfectly gorgeous full moon. But, sheesh, when it hits totality, 'bout like to knock me on my butt every time. I always forget! Until that moment. Tonight, the sky suddenly filled up with stars; the Milky Way roared right over my roof above the trees; meteor after meteor after meteor shot every which way; and the moon was finally that fascinating sphericality you know it is, but never get to see.

The beach plot was foiled by a bunch of bratty kids out after the same thing. So I came back home... it being essentially identical here... without the surf part... will go back in a bit for the moonset part. An hour and a half, barefoot in the yard, marvelling at the totality, the gorgeous sky. I have always been able to see the moon moving in the sky, even before the Zen stuff. Most people can't, or don't, because they move too much, won't be still. Tonight I was not as motionless as I can be, not wanting to get too stiff, and I was not gasping and yelling with the beautiful cosmos for fear of alarming the neighbors' dogs.

It was like making love with 86, back when he was still a man who just could hold his liquor really, really well: I would suddenly ask him how he did it, and he'd say, "What do you mean! You're experiencing it!" No, no, no! I'm experiencing every cell in supernova and I can't tell which ones it's starting from! How do you do that?

He never would tell me, liking the daylights out of confusing me thus.

So an hour and a half of a giant smoky orange orbiting earth, and 99 scrunching down betimes to get under it some more, or hooking it left or right here and there, a split second where the moon is mirrored in a tear.