The Moon in the Trees

The photo is for its own sake.

The writing is in reference to a couple of discussions on lists this week. One involves teens and rebellion, vaguely punishments and parenting.

Before 6:00 a.m. this morning, when Keith had just left for work, I was gathering up trash and putting bird seed in feeders. I saw the moon and wanted to take this photo, but the camera wasn't in the drawer in Kirby's room (now a public gaming room, while he's in Texas) where we've decided is a good place for it. It wasn't in my office (second likeliest place).

I opened the door to Holly's room quietly and said "Where's the camera?"

"It's on my desk," she said in an informational and neutral way.

"Thanks."

I was quiet, she was quiet, and nobody was mad about anything.

Had this happened with me and anyone when I was younger (in my teens or 20's) I figure there would've been shame and defense and criticism and maybe insults and yelling. This, though, was just about a camera and not about people's doings or motives or worth.

The other discussion had to do with the physical-plant recommendations of unschoolers. The photo was taken from the deck that opens off the library, a two-car-garage-sized room not coincidentally above a two-car garage. There's what it looks like now with the sun up.

The building visible to the right is the room where Keith and I sleep. When the kids were younger, I didn't always sleep there all night. Holly was just turning six when we moved here and we slept in the same bed or same room a lot. When Keith was working in Minneapolis, the kids and I would puppy-dog it in one room or another sometimes.

As the boys got older they would stay up late, playing CCG and RPG games, in this room from which I saw the moon. They'd have the door closed. Keith was WAY, way down through the house and physically under a different roof, on a different foundation. That has made for a GREAT deal of peace in this family. It is possible for someone to sleep in peace and quiet while others are in the other end of the house not being quiet!

The moon was framed between two Arizona cypress trees, the big evergreens along the edge of our yard, and the branches of a just-now-leafing-out fruitless mulberry which was mostly dead when we moved here eleven years ago, and every year fills in more and more. I didn't get exactly the same angle, but at least you can see what you were looking at in the dark.