The Moon Don't Hang Quite as High as it Used to

I saw the moon last night. That I am sure. Why, I had the lyrics ''She swears the moon don't hang quite as high as it used to'' from Matchbox Twenty's 3 am on my mind the whole night yesterday and the whole day today. So I am sitting by the window to look at the moon only that I can't see it. As I sit here, I remember the book The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. In explaining her name, Esperanza says that she was named after her great grandmother. She, like her great grandmother was born in the Chinese year of the horse. This is apparently bad luck if you are female, because the females born in the year of the horse are strong. And in both the Chinese and Mexican cultures, strong women are not encouraged. Esperanza, the great grandmother, was a wild horse woman who wouldn't marry until a sack was thrown over her head by the great grandfather and was carried away. She did not forgive him and for the rest of her life, she looked out the window. Esperanza compares her great grandmother's looking out the window to how many women sit their sadness on an elbow. Esperanza is fine with inheriting her great grandmother's name but she doesn't want to inherit her place by the window.

I shudder just by thinking about the book. Because I am looking out the window just like, I am assuming, Esperanza did. I guess looking out the window at this other side of midnight is a little sad and lonely. That thought is a little bit disquieting, so I ask myself, what really is it that I am looking for. I tell myself that the wanting to see the moon is just an excuse my conscious self wants to believe and my subconscious is hiding the real reason. So I stare. The wind is blowing softly. This, I deduce from the fact that I see the leaves moving slowly, back and forth, back and forth, then a little more violently, then back to its slow rhythm. It's fascinating. It is quiet. Deathly quiet. I like it.

Esperanza may have been looking out the window hating how her life turned out. But I am looking out the window finding peace in my aloneness thinking I should sit here daily instead of every other day and knowing that beyond the horizon, beyond this tiny spot on the globe, the sun is rising.

The title of this post is from the song 3 AM by Matchbox Twenty.