Listen to the Moon, and Follow the Sun

The woman was awake before the sun.

She chose to pay it no mind. She knew she would see the sun eventually. It faithfully poked it’s head through the curtains every morning while she ironed, sharing its radiance with her for that brief moment.

For now though, she had lunches to pack. She laid out bread and began to haphazardly spread peanut butter on each slice.

The house was filled with a thick quiet that made the bags under her eyes only weigh more. These early morning wake up calls have aged her both physically and mentally, and she could feel these effects more than usual now. The aching pit of anxiety grew in her chest, and her breathing deepened in an attempt to fill the void.

This was the worst part of the day for her. It wasn't just that the black sky was seeping through each window into each corner of the room. No, it was that she felt so lonely down here in this kitchen. Despite the monster that laid asleep upstairs, waiting to be awoken so that it could remind the woman where everything went wrong, she felt so desperately lonely. The most peaceful parts of the day were when the monster finally left, and there was no one left but her and the sunrays to dance with. Those were the pockets of the day where she felt seen. Where she felt young again.

Spreading the thick peanut butter had ripped holes in the soft, uniform bread. With a sigh, she decided it was enough. She turned to the sink and turned on a stream of warm water to rinse the butterknife with. The sink was her favorite place in the kitchen because of the window that faced it. The woman often found herself lost in the view. Mesmerized at the way the wind so gently pushed the leaves of their backyard tree. She adored the sound that the leaves made when the wind combed its way through them, like earth’s most carefully crafted windchime.

Right now it was difficult to admire the tree as it was coated in darkness. The only thing visible currently was the moon. It was full, and its aura cast a dull light around it. There was something so enchanting about this full moon. Every time the woman tried to focus on something else, she found her eyes returning to face it. She glanced back down to the peanut butter on the knife, which was now melting and peeling away under the warm stream of water. It was so easy to get lost in the little things that bring her joy, so seeing the dull reminders of what most of her life was like only depressed her more.

This depression had only begun to swallow her back up when, in the tips of her ear, a voice had barely registered. If the woman had maybe an hour less of sleep, she would have mistaken it for her own mother. She listened closer to try and locate the strange voice.

“Psst,” the voice said, “Look over here.”

The woman paused for a moment to regain any sanity she thought she had lost. The voice seemed closer than she had realized.

“Up here,” the voice continued, “Look up at the sky.”

She very easily suspended her disbelief, and angled her eyes out the window and toward the sky. Looking right back at her was the moon itself.

“Hello there child,” it said. Its voice was feminine. Stern, yet nurturing. It embraced the woman’s ears in the way a mother embraces her child.

The woman answered back, her first time she had used her voice since she woke up.

“Um. Hello there,” the woman said hoarsely. The moon chuckled in delight, glad to hear the woman’s voice.

“I have been watching you for a very long time,” says the moon. “I watch you when you wake up and come to this room.”

“Oh,” the woman replies, almost embarrassed that she was being watched so closely, “I come down here every early morning, I guess. I have things I need to do.”

The moon pauses before saying sternly, "You're not supposed to be here.”

“What do you mean? In this kitchen?” The woman asks desperately.

The moon answered simply, “In this kitchen, in this house, and in this night.”

What the moon said perplexed the woman greatly. A perplexity that quickly turned into frustration.

“You say that as if I have a choice,” she says bitterly.

The moon then shrewdly concluded, “But you do. And you always have.”

The air suddenly went stagnant.

In an instant, everything seemed to click. So many years of sorrow and exhaustion had suddenly been washed away. Her eyes begin to brim with tears at the feeling.

“What do I do then?” The woman barely choked out.

“Well,” the moon began, “You live. There are dreams and desires deep within you, I can see them from here. The day has not yet begun after all.”

“Where do I even go?” asks the woman.

“Wherever your soul takes you to,” the moon finished.

And that was all she needed. The weight on her shoulders, the bags in her eyes, and the age in her face all suddenly chipped away. She shut the faucet and made a break for a bag to pack. There was one goal running through her mind: run. Run far away. Away from here and toward a life not yet lived. The monster would not be woken up on time today. The lunches would not be packed. The blouse would not be ironed, and the carpet would not be vacuumed. None of that mattered any more. It was getting close to sunrise, and the woman hastily kicked on her flats and snatched her car keys from the hook that they rested on.

For a moment, she turned around to take in the home she hated so much one last time. It was strange to see the place standing before her was now in the past. Beyond the threshold of this front door was something unknown, something the woman must make herself. She swallowed any final crumbs of fear and opened the door.

By the time she was out of the neighborhood and almost at the highway. The sky was beginning to flush a faint orange. The moon was nowhere to be seen, and maybe that was okay. Maybe she could thank it another night. She turned right and entered the ramp to the interstate with no destination in mind. She would drive for as long as she needed to.

On the empty highway, the woman could see a familiar head peek over the horizon. The sun had found its way back to her again. Its warmth dried the tear marks on her face. As long as she followed where the sun wanted to take her, things would be okay. The woman disappeared into the daylight, cleansed of all that kept her in the darkness.