Artemis's Gift

Sometimes, I take for granted the little moments of calm. My life is so full of sickness, emotion, grief, pain, and just noise in general, that I feel like becoming mentally numb and defaulting through the day has become my new norm. But tonight, the drive home was that brief moment of peace I didn’t know I was missing

Hardly anyone is on the twisting backroads at eleven-thirty at night on a Thursday. Children have school the next day and most adults work a day-shift job and are already throwing in the towel for the night. No house lights are lingering on, and churches are environmentally silent except for the faint flicker of a sign with an inviting (or periodically threatening) bible verse plastered onto the flickering light board. As September transitions into October, more and more generic pumpkin and hay bale decorations light up the edges of the street. Intense headlights from passing cars, and piercing red brake lights will frequently jarr me out of a relaxing drive home as one or the other will never fail to pop up in my rear view mirrors. Every other mile, the highbeams of my car will catch the eyes of a deer or armadillo or whatever it may be, looming a bit too close to the street, the jumpscare immediately taking me out of whatever calm I have in that moment and ripping me into fight or flight so hard my bones start to ache.

Tonight, however, even after the cold sounds of pump occlusion, ventilator alarms and the ambulance sirens reversing another patient into the emergency bay, I find my peace. The hour drive home that I have learned to fear for unexpectancy has blessed me with a moment of serenity I did not know I was sorely lacking.

With no blinding bright lights on the road, my eyes can fully adjust to the darkness that surrounds me, every so often being interrupted slightly by a distant person turning onto a county road, or someone far ahead of me making a brave midnight pit stop at one of the numerous small town gas stations. My typically loud and rowdy music that keeps me awake during the drive home has become an irritant, so I switch it off and enjoy only the sound of my car engine running through a cracked window. Autumn has started to creep its way in after the blistering summer in the south, and soothes me like aloe vera to a sunburn.

The calm, cool air smells like fresh cut grass, one of the last times I’ll detect that until next early spring. The air has a certain stillness to it tonight. There is no excess wind whipping through my lowered driver-side window, and the humidity has backed off from its usual late-summer torrent. I shut my air conditioning inside the car off, in turn making the serenity magnify.

Nighttime critters that once used to be a source of fear and stress have all of a sudden become predictable. The deer congregate in their usual hangout spots, content as the roar of my engine passes them while they eat their midnight snack. Opossums trot along the side of the street with their offspring on their back, never changing course into the path of my car. Armadillos scamper in the unkempt grass to the sides of the pavement, only visible from the light reflecting off of their armor and the movement of something small disturbing the browning greenery. Every so often, the hoot of an owl breaks the trance of white line fever, bringing me safely back into my body. The typically troubling S-curve that I slow down for every night like clockwork is void of people and animals, and the flash of eyes in the towering grass that have grown predictably unpredictable fail to catch me off guard. The valley to my left, for once, has grown still and silent, much like the plant life getting ready to hibernate for the mild winter ahead.

As if to perfectly backdrop this whole evening, the waning gibbous of the harvest moon glows a breathtaking glittery, golden hue, set behind the faintest of fog, not enough to obscure the light, but just enough to illuminate my path home. A solemn cloud frames the moon, as if an adult sits perched on a childhood tree swing. What blades of grass and spiderwebs are starting to dew over flicker as I drive by. Oh my! What a picturesque sight. The late night sky looks as if Van Gogh had hand-painted a scene for a lover, a most beautiful, carefully etched nightscape painted directly onto a black void canvas. Indeed, no human could have created the sight in front of me. If there just so happens to be a benevolent entity in this world, She has painted the universe so carefully for me, almost as if to say, 'Don't tell anyone, as this sight is for you, and you alone.’ The stars are barely visible, but this art piece doesn’t need them, as the moon is the star of the show. 

I feel all of the tension in my body release slowly, not knowing just how much my shoulders and neck have been seized up with distress. My back molds to my car seat, then my hips and legs relax, each muscle fiber releasing like a bow string being unstrung. A genuine smile falls so naturally over my lips, coming so easily I hardly notice until the corners of my mouth start twitching. I can feel the childlike wonder creeping into my tired eyes, and suddenly my mind begins to wander. To behold a sight that so many people take for granted makes me curious, what secrets lie between Armstrong and Aldrin’s footprints? As I turn onto the straight-shot highway home, the moon rotates behind me and out of sight. I ignore the certainty of returning to my job the following afternoon, and hope tomorrow night will be as blissful as tonight has been.