Full moon and other stories

I have been absent from Nostalgic Marveling for a while.   Busy with work, familial obligations and what-not, I haven't had some quiet time for nostalgia.  Until I looked up while walking to 7-Eleven this evening and noticed the full moon.  La bella luna!

The full moon is always a marvel. I never tire of full moons and have always felt a connection when I see the moon rise above the trees.  Not because of an urge  to take off leaving the lower-half of me behind, or because my friends call me "Loony", nor I wail arias of grief during the full moon.  Incidentally, my father aptly named me Luna,  the moon.  My lunacy is entirely a different story.

Growing up in a rural area, watching the full moon with my grandmother was one of the highlights of my childhood. Sitting on the bamboo bench under the old jackfruit tree, we would listen to the sounds of crickets, of jubilant frogs singing a cappella, and a distant call of birds at twilight---a poignant moon rising beyond the cornfield, beyond the bamboo trees. It’s an indelible memory of richness and color and song.

There was once a huge sineguelas tree in my grandmother’s yard. Its bare branches create gnarled shadows during full moon---the set of my childhood horror fantasies.  There was no electricity in those days, and we entertained ourselves by playing hide and seek at the beach during full moon.  The ocean shimmered under the moonlight and my best buddy and I would lay on the sand and share our girlish dreams, or we're on our stomachs,  crawling over vines on the sand dunes with ants biting our faces as we spied on lovers whispering sweet nothings by the seawall.  No wonder full moons are traditionally linked to insanity, crime, fertility as well as vampires, werewolves and aswangs, not to mention peeping Janes!

One full moon many summers ago, my [female] cousins and I went skinny-dipping in Guimaras.  We locked our cousin, Ian, inside the cabana and ran naked to the water, then prayed no fishermen saw us.  The notion that some people act strangely during a full moon has been around in every culture for ages…they call it the “full moon effect”.   In Hitchcock's films, Stephen King's novels, there is always an element of the full moon effect.

True romantics, like my Uncle M, invoke moon deities hoping to mystify the object of their desire--my uncle even talked to the man in the moon.  The full moon has an enduring place in our lives.  I am inspired by it, some are afraid of it.  I am glad these days my lunacy does not seek new levels when the moon is full, I guess I am crazy enough already.   But I must admit that sleeplessness tend to increase during the full moon---my flock of sheep will be working overtime.

And you may ask, with all the goings on and distractions of living in the city, why look up? Well, because sometimes we are rewarded with a spectacular natural event, like a hauntingly beautiful full moon.

P.S.  The moon photo is borrowed.

This post is linked to Nostalgic Marveling