telescope

it is sunday evening and we are trying to find a place to park. this is part of the ritual. most weekends we go away to the quiet and the mountains full of snow and water and wild animals. then every sunday we drive back into the city as the sun sinks, drive along the west side highway with the sun scooting along with us over the tops of those tall apartment buildings in jersey, losing it as we dip down under the river through the brooklyn battery tunnel and then when we come out the other side the sun is gone, leaving that blue sky that happens at only just this moment, but every single day.

we finally get ourselves parked a few blocks away from our own front door, walk past the laundromat that spilled bleach on our green sheets, past the bodega with the mysterious remodeling sign on the closed front door, to the intersection where the f train spits folks out at all four corners. and we can see him from where we are, from this far side of the street. he is standing behind a fat telescope at possibly the most brightly lit corner in our neighborhood, outside a diner and about three feet from the steps to the train.

what an idiot, i think to myself. the sweetie mutters something about how he's chosen the stupidest place he could find to set that thing up. he couldn't be more in the way. we cross the street toward him, weighed down with our weekend bags and sacks of groceries. the small brown dog is tethered to my wrist. and the man with the telescope beams at us as we step up onto the sidewalk. he is dapper. bright white hair and a face absolutely awash with excitement. "look at the moon!" he says. and the sweetie walks over. he looks through the eyepiece and can't see it at first. he ajdusts and sees it. he motions me over, smiling a little like the moon man. i hand over the dog to the sweetie and bend to the eyepiece. and it really is there. the moon. now, i have seen the moon a million times maybe. i have even seen it a few times through a telescope. but never in a city. never in this city. not up close.

the moon tonight is a first quarter moon. it's halfway to full. and i see all of it crowding into the lens there, cratery and quiet, getting more and more shadowy toward what looks from this far like the edge. the man just stands there, happy i guess to be sharing something he loves so much. i tell him thanks and the sweetie and i walk away. a family is walking up with two or three children just the right age. they know the moon sits there in the background of each night of their lives. but they do not yet know its brightness up close and will not be expecting this.