"The Moon Ain't Romantic, It's Intimidating As Hell"
Barton Springs Early Morning Swim Report 10/1/2023
The moon has been up to some shenanigans lately, big, bright, all over the sky. I’m not the most observant person when it comes to the natural world, or indeed the physical world altogether, but Thursday the moon was huge and low on the horizon when I arrived at 5:30AM.
I mean, it takes a lot to make me stop and take a picture of the moon. I swam two laps, and on my way moonward length it felt breathtaking, primal-feeling, to swim toward the moon. By my second length west, the moon had set.
I think that’s the morning that, as I left, I saw two young very fit shirtless men watch a raccoon run at top speed into a thicket.
“Raccoon,” one said.
The other nodded.
I said, “He was booking it!”
The first young man said, “Somebody’s late for work.”
I posted a picture of the moon on Instagram and my friend Carrie Fountain said that her daughter reported that the moon would be most noticeable at 5:38 on Friday morning.
That is the moon, not the sun. In real life the moon was a bright object in a black sky, spilling like paint across the pool.
Last night the Ball-&-Chain & I went to a very splendid reading at the newly opened Alienated Majesty Books here in Austin, and when I saw the evening moon I knew I wanted to see it again in the morning. Today I arrived in the dark and swam three lengths.
My first lap was dark, the moon wearing a little shearling jacket of clouds; my second peachy light in one direction and pale chartreuse the other; the last bright daylight. At one point a woman swam width-wise across the pool holding aloft what looked like a bouquet of flowers but what must have a dry towel, a more impressive feat. Today the moon could not be intimidated out of the sky. It was still quite high when I got out.
The title of this post is from Tom Waits’s “Bad Liver and a Broken Heart” and years ago, before I had ever heard the song, my dear friend Marguerite scrawled it on a postcard to me, and it’s been stuck in my head ever since.
Well that has given me a jimmy Webb ear worm
See her how she flies
Golden sails across the sky
Close enough to touch
But careful if you try
Though she looks as warm as gold
The moon's a harsh mistress
The moon can be so cold
😊
I woke up early and sat in the dark on my deck, with my dog drinking coffee... the moon was lurking over my shoulder, staring at me through the trees... creepy now that you put it all in context.
My dog didn’t howl. She has never howled at the moon in all her fifteen years ... I think dogs howling at the moon is a myth.