Becoming

Image: The nearly full moon rising over pink clouds, August 16, 2024

Some days it feels like everyone is striving to become something more rather than just being content with being. I snapped this picture last night because the sight of the moon rising above the clouds--tinged pink by the setting sun--was spectacular. I literally stopped in my tracks to take the picture, content in the moment.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that this moon was still becoming, on its way to even greater splendor. On Monday, when it reaches fullness, it will become a super blue moon. This is a seasonal blue moon (Writer's Note: this is a real dilemma - do I pretend I knew the difference between a monthly blue moon and a seasonal blue moon before I looked it up?) A seasonal blue moon occurs when there are four full moons in a season, in this case summer. For some strange reason, the third moon of the season is the blue moon, not number four. A super blue moon happens on average, about every ten years, but we also had one last year (2023) when August had a monthly blue moon that also was a super moon.

I've written before about how the barn swallows like to 'help' me mow the lawn, flying alongside the mower to snatch as many insects out of the air as they can. Some days I'll have as many as 10 or 15 swallows diving all around the yard as I mow. We've been joined this summer by a new helper.

Image: Red Tail Hawk pole sitting on a sunny afternoon.

A large female red tail hawk which nests in the woods behind my house has become very curious about what goes on in the yard and comes to visit at all hours of the day. She has a piercing shriek that lets me know she is watching and seems particularly interested when I'm working on the yard. I'm never sure if she is watching the swallows, or perhaps our Boston Terriers, or if she is just bossy because she seems to be telling me what do with all her chatter. In the last two weeks I have had two very close encounters with her. First, I came around the corner of the house and she was sitting on our front porch, not on the railing, but on the floor of the porch itself. She gave me a long look and eventually flew away.

A few days later, while mowing, she was lurking in the ditch (that's central Ohio slang for culvert) that runs along the road in front of the house. As I came up on her with the mower, she hopped out of the ditch onto the grass in front of me. We had a staring contest, maybe thirty seconds long, and I'm happy to report I won.

Love: a story of grief and desire is now available as an audiobook! Available on amazon, audible.com and wherever audiobooks are sold.

Win a free Kindle edition of Love: a novel of grief and desire: I work with Reader's Favorite on the Kindle book giveaway. If you go to readersfavorite.com/book-giveaway you can sign up for the monthly giveaway. You can scroll through the list of giveaways (over 500 each month) or sort the list by title or author to find Love: a novel of grief and desire and put your name in for this month's drawing. Good luck!