Familiar Faces that Light My Way

Through the tiny airplane window, I could see the waning moon midway on her journey across the sky.  Four days earlier, she had been full and round, the Sugar Moon.  Now she was thinner but I still remembered the maple syrup we had made in our little sugar shack and the sugar maple trees in the yard that shared their sweetwater with us.  And I remembered the taste of that sweetwater that we drank as a spring tonic.

Now, I was headed west to Victoria where sugar maples are not generally found except in special gardens.  I was on my way to meet my daughter and my son and hopefully some Arbutus and Douglas-fir trees that I had read about but never seen. As I looked out of the airplane window as we sat on the tarmac I noticed the moon.  That made me smile to see her shining down on my journey.

The plane took off and circled Toronto until it was finally headed west. I was watching the land as we rose to cruising speed and altitude but once we were headed west, there was the moon outside of my window once again.  I was happy to see her familiar face in a sea of unfamiliar ones sharing the plane with me.

Over the five-hour flight to Vancouver, I noticed that the moon was getting a little ahead of us. I tried to figure it all out but remained slightly baffled.  I guess the world was spinning faster in the opposite direction than we were flying even though we were hurtling through the air at over 900 km/h.  It made me think about my life these days.  No matter how fast I go and how much I try to accomplish, the tasks that need doing always outpace me just like the moon was doing now. 

The moon and I were both orbiting Earth out there in the sky and I was happy for her company until the sky got too light and she disappeared from my view.  I missed her shining face but very shortly we landed in Vancouver.  My daughter was already there and she texted me that she could see my plane and would meet me when I came out.  I followed the other passengers and we walked and walked until finally we came to a doorway and there was my daughter’s shining face.  How wonderful lit is to find a familiar face in a sea of strangers.  The heart just leaps.

We flew together in a little turbo prop plane over the many islands between Vancouver and Victoria.  We could see ships and ferries down below.  Before you knew it, we were in a rental car headed for Sydney where my son who had taken a ferry from Vancouver was waiting for us.  With lots of help from the GPS voice, we found the restaurant and after searching the faces in there, we found my son, another shining face.  How wonderful it was to sit across from my grown children at the table after travelling with hundreds of strangers across the country. 

Together we explored Victoria walking through Beacon Hill Park with its giant Western Red Cedars, to the place where Terry Fox started his run so many years ago, past Emily Carr’s home, around the Legislative Buildings where the Moose Hide Campaign celebrates every year, along the harbour and then back again.  My daughter had found us an Air B&B with a lovely fenced in yard so there was no need to pull down the blinds at night.  The next morning, I woke up and looked out the lovely big windows and there in the sky was the moon, a little thinner but midway across the sky again.  I laughed out loud to see her there.  She was travelling just as I was. She connected me to home somehow. She had already looked down on my home in the east and now here she was in British Columbia. The next morning, a little later this time, there she was again. 

After a few days, we travelled on to Salt Spring Island and I didn’t see the moon again for a few days.  Our next stay was in a lovely little cabin that faced east.  There were tall Sitka Spruces and Douglas-firs to the south blocking the sky.  I missed seeing her in the mornings.

On our last day, we took the 6:15 am ferry back to Victoria.  It was dark when we drove onto the boat and we went to sit in the heated seating area.  The ferry turned and then started sailing south down Fulford Harbour.  The sky began to glow in the east and we went out onto the deck to watch the sunrise.  And there just to the west of the rising sun was the crescent moon just rising.  What a perfect send off as we began our journeys back to our homes in Calgary and Barrie this time in the opposite direction to the moon.  

But I know I will see her again once she starts to wax and I will always remember seeing her face and the faces of my daughter and my son in British Columbia.  In a world of so much change, I find myself relying on the constancy of the moon ever changing as she is.  Rising at a different time each day as she completes her own orbit of Earth, changing shape and size every day and then beginning again. She reminds me that change is part of life, that movement is part of life and that connecting to these cycles helps me to feel at home.  The moon helps me to find my place amidst my own changes and cycles and travels and I love her company.