A 50% Moon

Barton Springs Early morning swim report, 4/12

A clean half moon this morning, the kind that’s never asked to appear in a children’s book. (Imagine the audition: “Sorry, pussycat: you’re just a good-looking semi-circle. The kids want a crescent—that way if they want a face, they get a profile—or a full, for the whole face. You understand.”) Half a cake, half a pie, half a moon. I swam three laps and got out dawnish, 6:40, more than an hour of my very slow sloshing.

There’s a certain early light that makes me, descended from midwesterners, think of Jell-O molds. That is, fondly and with wonder, though it’s a frequent occurrence.