Earlier in the week I was leaving work as the sun was setting.  There was a pink glow on the horizon behind me and in front of me, as I rounded a curve I saw the moonrise.  It is my favorite time to moon-watch because it is bigger on the horizon than later when it is high above, and because I just love to watch it peek over the peaks.  On this day, in my line of sight, were Mount Yonah and the full moon, two of my favorite things, side by side as if they were chatting about the weather.  I pulled off the road and scrambled to find my phone cam to try to capture their conversation.  I got the shot but because the high school was in the foreground I decided to go to another location to get a more natural view.  I knew just the place, so took a few more turns for a few more miles.  Yonah was towering from my new view point, but the moon was not to the left of the mountain anymore, but far to the right…too far to get a shot of the two of them together…at least from that perspective.  Ah, but I am a local and I know all the good, off-the-beaten-path Yonah viewing spots so I was not deterred.  The chase was on.

From each view the moon was in a different place, none of which was near the mountain.  Not one to give up, I decided I just needed to be higher, so I turned on any road that looked as if it might go up.  The daylight was quickly fading, creating an orangeish-pinkish hue throughout the sky and turning the trees into silhouettes…their arms reaching to the heavens as if they were pointing out where the stars were soon to appear.  In their midst was the full moon I was chasing, and I decided rather than try to catch the moon and the mountain, I would capture the beauty of the shimmering orb from my favored places.  With renewed determination, I followed the glow over hill and dale, past rivers and hills, over lakes and into valleys…always looking out the windows so as to not lose sight of it.  Fading light finally ended my chase, but not before I took several photos.

I make no apologies for my love affair with the moon.  To me it is a magical phenomenon for a rock to glow so as to make night into day.  All the heavenlies inspire that kind of awe in me.  I am not a scientist, so I do not know all the factual information about space and stars and light.  I only know that my heart does a little skipping thing when I see light shine out in the darkness from a source other than a light bulb.  I guess that since stars have their own light, I find the moon to be beautifully odd in the fact that it only reflects light.  It does not seem possible that the luminescence that shines in my windows at night is merely a reflection.   It does not seem possible that the moon is everywhere at once, and that no matter where you are in the world you look up and find it staring down at you like an old friend lighting your way home.  When I look up I think of others who also look up and I wonder if all moon lovers are somehow connected by the light or maybe the gravity pulls us towards one another like the tide.  Whatever the draw, I never tire of looking at this glowing white light.  My eyes are drawn to it like a moth to a flame and I think I will forever be…chasing the moon.