Tonight, August 30, was the Super Blue Moon and we glided out into the night to watch it make its arc across our sky. My daughter, Kate, visited for dinner so she and my wife and I were drawn to share the experience.

I had just received texts from a group of my closest friends with pictures of the event: from Long Island, Connecticut and Florida and a comment from California.

Earlier today was the fury of Idalia, the hurricane that was tackling Florida and was now accosting Georgia and the Carolinas. My friend Bob, down in Punta Gorda, FL, had escaped the worst of Idalia since most of the damage lay further north in Florida’s Big Bend area. He sent us pictures of the canal rising close to his back yard lawn, then receding – but the concern was how the full moon might increase the high tide to even more dangerous levels combined with the hurricane surges. After the worst was over, Bob sent a picture of the moon rising over his canal and house.

Meanwhile, Karen, Kevin and Bob, friends who all now live in Connecticut, sent their photos of the moon. Kitzel, holding the fort on Long Island (where we all became friends together back in our youth and teen years), showed her photo of the moon rising over Suffolk County, lying between the Atlantic Ocean and the Long Island Sound. Mike noted how low the elevation of the moon is, peering in his window far from us, out in California.

So, after all that prompting, I advised my wife and daughter that maybe we ought to also take a look ourselves. As we ventured outside, the most apparent feature was not so much the “Super” size, but the brightness. Now, I’ve witnessed more than a few full moons in my almost 70 years on Earth, but this was so bright, it almost hurt to stare at it too long. After all, you are staring at reflected sunlight. There were few stars visible due to the brightness and some scattered clouds. But nothing was blocking that hulking moon.

We stood out a while, chatted and then Kate drove off for home. Later, my wife turned on the news to watch the latest on the hurricane damage. We both have moms living in Florida. My 95 year-old mom was under a “mandatory evacuation” in Sarasota but she was safely settled in with my cousin and her husband who live nearby in Bradenton.  Although Bradenton is also on the Gulf and 13 miles north (and thus closer to the hurricane), there were no forced evacuations there. Go figure. Just as well or else my poor mom would have been shuffled all around Florida looking for a landing spot – and she no longer handles a change of scenery as well as she once did.

My wife’s mom lives in Tallahassee, 20 miles inland. No storm surges there. But she did lose power and since she requires oxygen due to COPD, she did have her trusty generator working (she uses an oxygen concentrator which requires electricity).

So all is well. Bob, down in Punta Gorda, survived as did the two moms. That allowed the rest of us to stare at a Super Moon, once we knew everyone was safe.

Later that evening, I recalled F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous line from the beautifully written ending of The Great Gatsby:

And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes – a fresh, green breast of the new world.

The old island Fitzgerald refers to, of course, is Long Island, the north shore of which is the setting for the novel, and the birthplace of most of my friends and myself.

After a day spent surveying our family and our friends’ exposure to Idalia, it felt more reassuring than normal to stare upwards at the moon, that ancient satellite that has been captivating mankind for more than a million years. The beautiful, bright radiance was as obvious as the huge roundness of the moon. You could almost imagine that there must be some kind of life on this neon-lit expanse floating around us on a clock-like schedule. You almost wonder, how could it be so lifeless, it looks so amazing.

It is next day now and everyone is safe as I can tell by all the morning texts between us flying back and forth at random: texts about medical updates, movie and music recommendations and more – the usual welcome distractions and oddities we all like to exchange with each other.

So things are back to normal but not really. We might have escaped Idalia but many did not. For some, the anguish has only just begun. We don’t need Global Warming or Climate Change activists to remind us Earth is a dangerous place, or that it is becoming more dangerous. Gun violence, geo-politics, ongoing wars, racial inequality, red states vs. blue. The list goes on.

When I was younger, I dreamed these problems would abate, the world would gradually cozy up and international business concerns would force political leaders to choose economic growth over nuclear warheads. How naïve I was.

Now, survival is no longer guaranteed. Of course, it never was, but as the U.S. rose in prominence to become a Super Power and a beacon of economic strength (this is how you do it, we seemed to project to the world), we expected the world would follow our example. Except, the world had other plans.

So we beat on, boats against the current as Fitzgerald wrote at the close of his famous novel. I take it each day, check in with my friends to know they are all well and good. My wife and I check in with the moms to know they are safe and in a good place.

The Earth and the moon continue to race across the Galaxy as we wonder if the universe is expanding and ponder what the hell dark matter is anyway?

Some things I once thought I might discover as I got older, I now realize will not be answered during my remaining lifetime. Going to other stars? We cannot even safely land astronauts on our closest planet, Mars, yet. Gun violence? Forget it, sadly. Solve global warming? Sure, but political agendas and denial got in the way.

So, we will have to continue to settle for anticipating the occasional super or wolf or blue moon events. After all, they are universally reassuring; no matter where in the world or political or economic spectrum you may lie.

In a turbulent world, the moon reassures us, cycle after cycle after cycle.

Chris Ebel
8/31/23

Photo  credit: @Patos