The Fourth Full Moon Has Passed: The Sturgeon Moon

The fourth full moon has passed since Dad died beneath the Flower Moon on May 1 and considering it has only been a week since the Sturgeon Moon, it feels as though an entire season has passed in those few days. The semester has officially begun, but before that came faculty development week, too many meetings, and all the frantic preparation that marks the end of summer whether you are ready for it or not. And then, in the middle of all of that, there was the moon. On Thursday night, I got up around 12:12 to see the lunar eclipse. I stood outside looking up, sleepy but determined not to miss it, and it was beautiful and poignant. Four full moons ago, I began paying attention to the moon because Dad died beneath one. Now I find myself marking time by it, measuring the distance between then and now in moons instead of weeks.

The next evening, I gave a historic tour beneath the Sturgeon Moon at Hollywood Cemetery. It was a big crowd, but a wonderful one. They were friendly, kind, and incredibly helpful. There is something strange and lovely about walking through a cemetery beneath a full moon, telling the stories of people who have been gone for decades or centuries while carrying the absence of someone who has only recently gone. Then, on Saturday, my friend Miako took perhaps the biggest risk of the weekend by agreeing to go with me to the James River to try Stand-Up Paddleboarding. There are several things you should know about this decision. First, I have pretty terrible balance. I have Ménière’s disease, and it is an ongoing joke that I walk into walls because, well, I pretty much do. Second, I hadn't put on a swimsuit in two decades and actually had to buy one specifically for this adventure. Third, my wobbly legs were giving me some fairly reliable information that standing upright on a floating board in the middle of the James River might not be where my particular talents lie. Naturally, I tried anyway.

inspiration illustration

I got a little brazen and attempted to stand before I was ready, and into the James I went. I had not planned on swimming with the sturgeon as part of this particular full-moon adventure, but there I was. And no lie: there was an enormous splash right beside us. Sturgeon live in the James, so naturally we decided it had to be one. I choose to believe this. Getting back onto the paddleboard became an adventure of its own. Miako paddled us closer to shore so I could get some footing in the shallower water, and somewhere in the process I lost my hat and my sunglasses, but wow, did we laugh. Because apparently falling into the James wasn't enough, being on the water also made me completely seasick. I am not the best representative for Pisces. Eventually, I accepted my fate and converted Stand-Up Paddleboarding into Sit-Down Paddleboarding while Miako actually managed to stand. Somewhere between falling in, losing my belongings, getting seasick, laughing until it hurt, and sitting on that board on the James, I realized that all of it was part of the adventure. This is what acknowledging the full moon has become for me. It isn't really about accomplishing something, and it isn't even entirely about the moon. It is about interrupting the ordinary march of days long enough to notice that another month has passed without Dad. Instead of letting that passage happen unnoticed, I do something that reminds me I am still here. And, as Miako said, the goal was getting together and getting in the water; we accomplished just by participating. 

After SUP, we ate lunch at the marina. I ordered a grilled cheese and some absolutely amazing hush puppies with berry butter. I'm basically a child. Apparently my version of conquering the river is falling off a paddleboard, losing my hat and sunglasses, getting seasick, and then celebrating with grilled cheese. But those hush puppies with berry butter were amazing, and sitting there with Miako after everything we'd just done, laughing about the ridiculousness of it all, felt like part of the full-moon ritual, too. Maybe acknowledging another month without Dad doesn't always have to be solemn. Maybe sometimes it gets to taste like berry butter.

Then the semester began, and the moon disappeared back into the background of my life. I've had a stress-induced eye twitch for the last few days, and I keep going to my family home to take out trash and recycling while my Babushka works her butt off clearing out that place. I'm angry and I'm sad. For a while, I wasn't really crying, but for the last few days, I have been. I'm exhausted almost all the time, and work is stressful. Higher education is changing, and "academic transformation" sounds clinical until you remember that it means real people may lose their jobs. Things I have spent years building and believing in suddenly feel uncertain. My fella keeps reminding me of Cookie Monster's philosophy: "Cookie happened." That's probably more of a paraphrase than an actual Cookie Monster quotation, but I understand what he means. Cookie happened. I got to teach amazing literature. I got to sit in small groups and have conversations that mattered. I got to live and breathe in the humanities. Those things happened, and whatever comes next cannot undo them.

And I got to have a Dad who was pretty darn amazing. That happened, too. I got an entire lifetime of being his daughter. I got childhood and adulthood and all the ordinary days in between. I got stories and jokes and frustrations and memories. I got a father worth grieving, and now I get to clean up the mess… literally, in many cases. There are trash bags and recycling bins and belongings that have to be sorted. There are decisions about what stays and what goes. There are objects that meant something once and objects whose meaning has disappeared with the people who knew it. There is an entire physical life that somehow has to be reduced, distributed, recycled, donated, saved, or thrown away. I'm trying to do that with grace. Some days I probably do and some days I probably don't, but maybe grace doesn't require doing this beautifully. Maybe it just means continuing to show up.

The next full moon is the Harvest Moon. I have another cemetery tour planned, another volunteer gig beneath another full moon, but this time I don't have a physical adventure waiting for me. No sound bath. No bicycle. No paddleboard. No planned plunge into a river. And I think that may be right because harvest is different. For the last four moons, I have been going outward: walking, riding, paddling, searching, trying something new. But harvest is about gathering. It is about taking stock of what grew, what survived, what can be carried forward, and what has reached the end of its season. Maybe this moon doesn't need an adventure. Maybe it needs a basket. I recently bought a huge old basket, and I've decided to fill it with papier-mâché apples made from old newspapers that come from my folks’ house. There is something about that idea that feels right for where I am now: taking what is old, what has already been read and used and might otherwise be discarded, and turning it into something that symbolizes harvest. After months of trying to mark grief by doing something new, perhaps the Harvest Moon is asking me to look at what I already have.

I have a few plans.